Oracle Application Express (APEX) is a low-code platform that enables developers to build web applications quickly and easily. One of the key features of APEX is its ability to integrate PL/SQL code, which allows developers to create complex business logic that can be used in their applications. In this section, we will discuss how to use PL/SQL in Oracle APEX, and provide an example of how it can be used to use PL/SQL in Oracle APEX, you first need to create a new “PL/SQL Dynamic Content” region. Here are the steps:
- Log in to your Oracle APEX workspace and open the application you want to work on.
- Click on the “Create Page” button to create a new page.
- Select “PL/SQL Dynamic Content” as the region type, and give the region a name.
- In the “Source” field, you can write your PL/SQL code. This code will be executed when the page is loaded.
- You can also define bind variables in your PL/SQL code. These variables can be used to pass values from your application to your PL/SQL code.
- Once you have written your PL/SQL code, click on the “Create Region” button to create the region.
Here is an example of how to use PL/SQL in Oracle APEX:
Suppose we want to create an application that calculates the price of a product based on its quantity and price per unit. To do this, we will create a PL/SQL region that takes in two bind variables, “quantity” and “price”, and returns the total price of the product.
- Create a new page in your Oracle APEX application.
- Select “PL/SQL Dynamic Content” as the region type, and give the region a name.
- In the “Source” field, enter the following PL/SQL code:
- In this code, we define two bind variables, “v_quantity” and “v_price“, which are initialized with the values of the “quantity” and “price” parameters that are passed in from the application.
- We then calculate the total price of the product by multiplying the quantity by the price per unit, and store the result in the “v_total_price” variable.
- Finally, we use the “htp.p” function to output the result to the user.
- Click on the “Create Region” button to create the region.
Now, when the user loads the page, they will be prompted to enter the quantity and price of the product. The PL/SQL code will then calculate the total price based on these values, and display the result on the page.
In this way, PL/SQL can be used to create complex business logic that can be integrated into your Oracle APEX applications. By using PL/SQL, developers can create custom functions, procedures, and triggers that can be used to interact with the database, perform complex calculations, and automate business processes.