Along with launch of the fantastic APEX 5.0 Early Adopter 3 came a tweet from Joel Kallman describing the location of the APEX 5.0 BETA Documentation.
Whilst many developers are keen on exploring the new APEX 5.0 features such as Theme Roller, Universal Theme and Page Designer; I thought I’ll take a look at the APEX database packages and see how they differ from version 4.2 to version 5.0.
Since I now have documentation for both versions; I performed a quick comparison of the packages, functions and procedures. This is what I found:
Four new packages have been introduced to the documentation
APEX_AUTHORIZATION: Used for controlling and querying access rights to the application.
APEX_JSON: This package includes utilities that parse and generate JSON.
APEX_SPATIAL: Enables you to use Oracle Locator and the Spatial Option within APEX.
APEX_ZIP: Manages the zipping and unzipping of files.
You can read more in our blogs about APEX_JSON & APEX_ZIP.
We have 8 Functions & Procedures which have been deprecated; however APEX 5.0 has introduced 69 new ones. Here is the list in full:
GET_AUTO_INSTALL_SUP_OBJ Function
SET_AUTO_INSTALL_SUP_OBJ Procedure
APEX_AUTHORIZATION [NEW PACKAGE]
ENABLE_DYNAMIC_GROUPS Procedure
CREATE_SCHEMA_EXCEPTION Procedure
FREE_WORKSPACE_APP_IDS Procedure
REMOVE_SCHEMA_EXCEPTION Procedure
REMOVE_SCHEMA_EXCEPTIONS Procedure
REMOVE_WORKSPACE_EXCEPTIONS Procedure
RESERVE_WORKSPACE_APP_IDS Procedure
CHANGE_SUBSCRIPTION_EMAIL Procedure
CHANGE_SUBSCRIPTION_EMAIL Procedure
STRINGIFY Function Signature 1
STRINGIFY Function Signature 2
STRINGIFY Function Signature 3
STRINGIFY Function Signature 4
GET_ATTRIBUTE_AS_NUMBER Function
CHANGE_GEOM_METADATA Procedure
DELETE_GEOM_METADATA Procedure
INSERT_GEOM_METADATA Procedure
INSERT_GEOM_METADATA_LONLAT Procedure
IR_CLEAR Procedure [DEPRECATED]
IR_DELETE_REPORT Procedure [DEPRECATED]
IR_DELETE_SUBSCRIPTION Procedure [DEPRECATED]
IR_FILTER Procedure [DEPRECATED]
IR_RESET Procedure [DEPRECATED]
PUBLIC_CHECK_AUTHORIZATION Function [DEPRECATED]
RESET_AUTHORIZATIONS Procedure [DEPRECATED]
SET_GROUP_GROUP_GRANTS Procedure
SET_GROUP_USER_GRANTS Procedure
Author: Matt Mulvaney
Job Title: Senior Oracle APEX Development Consultant
Bio: Matt is an experienced APEX solution designer having designed numerous complex systems using a broad range of Oracle Technologies. Building on his previous experience of Oracle Forms & PL/SQL, he is entirely focused on providing functionally rich APEX solutions. Matt promotes APEX as a software platform and openly shares best practises, techniques & approaches. Matt has a passion for excellence and enjoys producing high quality software solutions which provide a real business benefit.