Working with G_Fnn Arrays (Legacy)

3.1 Working with G_Fnn Arrays (Legacy)

Important:

Support for G_Fnn arrays is legacy and will be removed in a future release. Oracle recommends using interactive grids instead.

The APEX_APPLICATION.G_Fnn arrays (where nn ranges from 01 to 50) are used with APEX_ITEM functions to enable the dynamic generation of HTML form elements to an APEX page (such as APEX_ITEM.TEXT and APEX_ITEM.SELECT_LIST). On Page Submit, the item values are sent to the server and provided as the APEX_APPLICATION.G_Fnn arrays.

Only use APEX_APPLICATION.G_Fnn in an APEX_ITEM context. For other contexts (such as plain array processing for PL/SQL code) use the APEX_T_VARCHAR2 type and the procedures and functions within the APEX_STRING package.

Note:

When working with APEX_APPLICATION.G_Fnn, the TABLE_TO_STRING and STRING_TO_TABLE functions in APEX_UTIL are deprecated. Use APEX_STRING.TABLE_TO_STRING and APEX_STRING.STRING_TO_TABLE instead.

Referencing G_Fnn Arrays

The following example uses APEX_ITEM to manually create a tabular form on the EMP table. Note that the ename, sal, and comm columns use the APEX_ITEM.TEXT function to generate an HTML text field for each row. Note also that each item in the query is passed a unique p_idx parameter to ensure that each column is stored in its own array.

On a new page, add a classic report with a SQL Query such as the following example:

SELECT
  empno,
  APEX_ITEM.HIDDEN(1,empno)||
  APEX_ITEM.TEXT(2,ename) ename,
  APEX_ITEM.TEXT(3,job) job,
  mgr,
  APEX_ITEM.DATE_POPUP(4,rownum,hiredate,'dd-mon-yyyy') hiredate,
  APEX_ITEM.TEXT(5,sal) sal,
  APEX_ITEM.TEXT(6,comm) comm,
  deptno
FROM emp
ORDER BY 1

Disable "Escape Special Characters" for all report columns (under the Security property in Page Designer).
Add a Submit button to the page.
Run the application.

Referencing Values Within an On Submit Process

You can reference the values posted by the tabular form using the PL/SQL variable APEX_APPLICATION.G_F01 to APEX_APPLICATION.G_F50. Because this element is an array, you can reference values directly. For example, the following code block collects all employee names as a text block and stores it as the value of the P3_G_F01_CONTENTS item:

:P3_G_F01_CONTENTS := '';
for i IN 1..APEX_APPLICATION.G_F01.COUNT LOOP
    :P3_G_F01_CONTENTS := :P3_G_F01_CONTENTS 
                       || 'element '||I||' has a value of '||APEX_APPLICATION.G_F02(i) || chr(10);
END LOOP;

Note that check boxes displayed using APEX_ITEM.CHECKBOX only contain values in the APEX_APPLICATION arrays for those rows which are checked. Unlike other items (TEXT, TEXTAREA, and DATE_POPUP) which can contain an entry in the corresponding APEX_APPLICATION array for every row submitted, a check box only has an entry in the APEX_APPLICATION array if it is selected.