Making & Consuming REST Web Services using ORDS & APEX

Oracle Rest Data Services (ORDS) is frequently used as a platform to access APEX applications which can be deployed in a number of ways.

Other than providing access to applications & hosting APEX Page Designer; it can also produce PDFs, reports and support REST web services.

REST web services are hosted by ORDS and can get and set values in your Database by invoking developer created PL/SQL routines. This means you can publish functionality of your application to other applications (perhaps created in other technologies) across your network or the internet.

In this video demonstration, I describe several examples of publishing web services which include image galleries (using BLOB content) and user comments which use REST web services to read and add data.

The default language of REST web services is JSON which are natively ssupported by new APEX 5.0 packages.

During this demonstration I describe 3 ways of calling REST web services from APEX. These are JavaScript, PL/SQL and by using a Process associated with a Web Service Reference. In addition I create a pipelined function which enables me to create a view so that I can select from a web service.

In summary, REST web services hosted on ORDS are powerful, flexible and facilitate interoperability between different applications and technologies. They and can be called in numerous ways with the JSON results being easily parsed and interpreted using APEX packages.

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.