Introduction

What Is Oracle Application Express?

Oracle Application Express is a hosted declarative development environment for developing and
deploying database-centric Web applications. Thanks to built-in features such as user interface
themes, navigational controls, form handlers, and flexible reports, Oracle Application Express
accelerates the application development process.

What Components Make Up Oracle Application Express?

Oracle Application Express contains four main components:

Application
Builder

SQL Workshop
Team
Development
Apps

Used to build database-centric interactive Web applications.

Used to access database objects, run SQL statements and SQL

scripts.
Facilitates the management of the application development
process.
Used to take a quick look at the packaged applications that are
available.

Terminology

The following concepts are important to know when working with Oracle Application Express:

A workspace is a virtual private database allowing multiple users to work

Workspace within the same Oracle Application Express installation but keeping their
objects, data and applications private.
An application is a collection of pages with branches that connect them. Its
Application attributes include the authentication method, default UI templates, and
authorization rules.
A page is the basic building block of an application. When you build an
Page
application in Application Builder, you create pages that contain user
interface elements, such as tabs, lists, buttons, items, and regions.
Content is displayed in regions, which are logical subsections of a page.
Each page can have any number of regions of several different types.
Region
These types include: HTML text, SQL Queries, PL/SQL-generated HTML,
and charts. Each region is rendered using a region template. Regions are
positioned on the page using display points defined in the page template.
An item can be a text field, text area, password, select list, check box, and
so on. Item attributes affect the display and behavior of items on a page.
For example, these attributes can impact where a label displays, how large
Item
an item is, and whether or not the item is displayed next to, or below the
previous item. The value of an item is automatically stored into the
application's session state, which can be referenced at any point within the
user's session.
Architecture

Oracle Application Express installs with your Oracle database and is comprised of data in tables
and PL/SQL code.

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Oracle Application Express utilizes a Web browser on the user's computer communicating
through a Web listener to the Oracle Database. No client software, other than a browser, is
required for development, deployment or runtime as Application Express pages are rendered
using HTML within the browser. Page requests and submissions are sent to the Application
Express engine within the Oracle Database.
When you create or extend an application, Oracle Application Express creates or modifies the
meta data stored in its database tables. When the application is run, the Application Express
engine then reads the meta data and displays the requested page or processes page
submissions.
To provide stateful behavior within an application, Oracle Application Express transparently
manages session state in the database. Application developers can get and set session state
using simple substitutions as well as standard SQL bind variable syntax.

Apache MOD_PLSQL

One way to access the Oracle Application Express engine is to configure the Oracle HTTP
Server (Apache) containing the mod_plsql plug-in. The plugin functions as communication
broker between the Web server and the Oracle Application Express objects in the Oracle
database. This maps browser requests into database stored procedure calls. Images are stored
on the file system and served by Apache. Using Apache allows the web listener to be placed on
the same physical machine as the database, or on a separate physical machine.

Oracle Application Express Listener

Oracle Application Express is a Java-based Web server. It features file system caching, support
for FOP transformations to PDF, offers improved file upload capability, and is certified against
Web Logic, Tomcat, and OC4J. The Oracle Application Express architecture requires some
form of Web server to proxy requests between a Web browser and the Oracle Application
Express engine. The APEX Listener was created to satisfy that need but its use goes beyond
that of Application Express configurations. The use of the Oracle APEX listener simplifies the
deployment process because there is no Oracle home required as connectivity is provided using
an embedded JDBC driver.

Embedded PL/SQL Gateway (EPG)

The embedded PL/SQL gateway runs in the XML DB HTTP server in the Oracle database and
includes the core features of mod_plsql, but does not require the Oracle HTTP Server powered
by Apache. The EPG stores and serves all files, including images, CSS, and Javascript from the
database. The EPG is convenient for smaller configurations. The EPG is not recommended for
larger scale production use cases or Internet facing applications.
Prerequisites

Install Oracle Database 11g or later.

Install Oracle Application Express Release 5.0.
Create a workspace and user.

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