daust_de :: Oracle XE / Apex

New Training Oracle APEX 4.0 / 4.1: New Features

2012-01-07T14:21:00.000+01:00

Our next training is scheduled for March 2012. You can find the details on www.opal-consulting.de.

Wir (Denes Kubicek und Dietmar Aust) freuen uns, das nächste APEX Training bekannt geben zu können.

Es findet am 26.03.2012 bis zum 27.03.2012 erneut in Bensheim bei Frankfurt statt, im Alleehotel.

Oracle APEX 4.0 / 4.1: New Features

In diesem Kurs zeigen Ihnen zwei ausgewiesene Experten im Oracle APEX Umfeld die neuen Features der Oracle APEX Version 4 (4.0 und auch 4.1). Die Version 4 steigert die Produktivität der Anwendungsentwickler wieder einmal signifikant, insbesondere die neue Plugin-Infrastruktur, Dynamic Actions sowie das neue Error Handling.

Nutzen Sie das Wissen und die Erfahrung von

Denes Kubicek, langjährige Projekterfahrung in den Bereichen Oracle und APEX mit multisite Applikationen, Preisträger des "Oracle APEX Developer of the Year 2008" Awards des Oracle Magazines, ein Oracle ACE Director und sehr bekannt im Oracle APEX OTN Forum für seine Beispielapplikation und
Dietmar Aust, erfahrener Oracle Consultant mit Spezialisierung auf Oracle Apex, aktiv in den OTN Foren zu Apex und Oracle XE, mit Präsentationen auf den letzten DOAG Veranstaltungen.

Neben einer Fülle an Informationen, wie die neuen Features von APEX 4.0 / 4.1 am besten in Ihren Applikationen eingesetzt werden können, ist insbesondere die abendliche Q&A Session (von 19:00-21:00) als Highlight zu nennen.
Dort stehen wir Ihnen für zusätzliche Hands-On Sessions zur Verfügung, um die Beispiele des Tages durchzuarbeiten oder auch, um konkrete Fragestellungen in Ihren aktuellen Projekten zu diskutieren.

Zum Inhalt:

Überblick der neuen Features, was ist alles neu
Der Umgang mit Websheets, wie kann man die neuen Wiki-ähnliche Funktionalitäten sinnvoll nutzen
Dynamic Actions, wie man AJAX Funktionalität deklarativ (ohne zu programmieren) in seinen Applikationen einsetzt
Erweiterbarkeit von APEX über Plug-Ins, benutzerdefinierten Elementtypen und Regionen
Verbesserungen der Tabular Forms, insbesondere die Validierungen und die Unterstützung zusätzlicher Elementtypen
Die Verwendung der neuen Elementtypen
Verbesserungen der mächtigen interaktiven Berichte mit komplexeren Filtern, Gruppierungen und das Abonnement von Benachrichtigungen
Team Development, das Projekt direkt mit APEX managen
Verbesserungen im Application Builder
Neue Möglichkeiten der Chart-Engine sowie neue Diagrammtypen (GANTT und Kartendarstellungen)
Web Services, deklarative Unterstützung von REST-Webservices
Administration, Vereinfachungen in der Administration sowie im Deployment von Applikationen
Umgang mit dem neuen APEX Listener
Das neue Error-Handling, schöne Fehlermeldungen für interne Fehler sowie nicht länger redundante Validierungen programmieren müssen
Mobile APEX: Anwendungen für Smartphones und Tablets entwickeln

Wir freuen uns, dieses Mal Peter Raganitsch als Gastredner bei uns im Kurs zu haben. Er ist in der APEX Community ebenfalls sehr bekannt und hält regelmäßig Vorträge zur Oracle APEX. Er wird das Thema "Mobile APEX: Anwendungen für Smartphones und Tablets entwickeln" behandeln.

Weitere Details zum Kurs sowie die Anmeldung finden Sie hier.

~Dietmar Aust.

Have fun at ODTUG Kaleidoscope

2011-06-23T18:13:00.000+02:00

I hope all of you guys will have a hell of a time at ODTUG KScope11 ( http://www.kscope11.com/ ) in California :).

Yepp, I do envy and miss you guys. I would have loved to be a part of this wonderful community ... again. This is the best conference in the world regarding Oracle development topics and Oracle APEX in particular ... all the experts ... the development team is there ... excellent !!!

Still being overworked dealing with too many projects at the same time I had to make a decision ... say NO once in a while ;). Thus I have decided to skip all conferences and all other opportunities for new projects until the end of the year. Once my life is in line again ... I'll be back ... definitely next year at ODTUG :))

Cheers,
~Dietmar.

Oracle DDL Extraction Scripts (v0.9.0.0) released

2011-06-23T18:05:00.000+02:00

Finally I have managed to document and release the scripts we use in our client projects to extract all DDL statements from our development instance into the filesystem.

They were announced in Chapter 9: Lifecycle Management in the book Expert Oracle Application Express.

You can find more details, the scripts and the documentation here: http://www.opal-consulting.de/tools .

Cheers and enjoy,
~Dietmar.

Expert Oracle Application Express book published

2011-06-23T18:00:00.000+02:00

I guess I am the last one to blog about the new APEX book: Expert
Oracle Application Express. ;).

The following 13 authors have contributed a chapter each to this excellent technical book on Oracle APEX 4.0.

Thanks a lot to John Scott for making this book happen!!! Aside from being a great effort from a truly technical point of view (getting 13 experts to write about their area of expertise :), it is also for a good cause !

Many of you might have heard about the deaths from Carl Backstrom and Scott Spadafore from the Oracle APEX development team. All royalties from the book sales will go to their families. They will be split 50/50 between the two memorial funds.

The book is available on Amazon, make sure to get a copy :).

You can find more details on John's blog.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Issue with JasperReportsIntegration and the XML DB Listener

2011-01-02T23:29:00.000+01:00

Hi guys,

I have helped somebody troubleshoot an issue with my JasperReportsIntegration kit. Although he had followed the instructions correctly, the report wouldn't show in the application.

It worked correctly when calling the j2ee application in the tomcat directly, but not when calling the report using the plsql interface xlib_jasperreports (which calls the j2ee server using utl_http)

The issue is related to the XML DB listener (also the primary http listener of Oracle XE) not supporting the http 1.1 standard. Since the XML DB listener only supports the 1.0 standard, the http parameter chunked transfer encoding is not working properly.

When calling the report through my JasperReportsIntegration toolkit you would either see an empty report or nothing at all.

See this thread for more details and your options: http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=4563910#4563910

Also, this problem will not crop up when you use a plain Apache as a proxy to your XE installation.

Cheers,
Dietmar.

Slides from APEX Posed 2010 in Brussels

2010-10-28T21:11:00.000+02:00

I just came back from Brussels where I was attending the APEX Posed 2010 conference in Brussels, Belgium.

It was a really good conference with excellent speakers regarding PL/SQL and APEX development. Also, the APEX development team was showing a strong presence once again: Patrick Wolf, Anthony Rayner and Hilary Farell.

My presentation revolved around a structured way to control the changes in an APEX project. As usual, I have made some last minute changes to my presentation, thus you can download the updated slides here as well as the template directory for building a patch.

Cheers and see you at the DOAG conference, who ever may go :),
~Dietmar.

APEX 4.0 New Features Training in Bensheim/Frankfurt (04.10-05.10.2010) - closed

2010-09-22T22:46:00.000+02:00

Due to the very high interest in this class we had to close the registration. If you are interested in this class at a later time please send us an email.

Cheers,
Dietmar.

Jasper Reports Integration v1.1.0.0

2010-09-04T19:05:00.007+02:00

I have just published version 1.1.0.0 of my Jasper Reports Integration package for integrating Jasper Reports into your Oracle APEX applications. There is no dependency on a specific APEX version nor on the database version.

You can find more information here: http://www.opal-consulting.de/tools

What can you do with it? Creating high-fidelity print ready reports in PDF, RTF, XLS and other formats using a really good report designer (iReport). And the best about it ... it is for free !

What are the major changes?

Upgrade of the libraries to Jasper Reports 3.7.4. Before, only reports created with iReport version 3.6.0 and below could have been run with this integration kit. Now the most up-to-date version of the JasperReports libraries are included.
Instructions for using the integration on Oracle 11.x was added. In order to use http callouts one has to configure the access control lists (ACL) for accessing external network resources.

Please let me know if anything is not working or when a new version of Jasper Reports is coming out and you need the updated libraries for running the reports.

Cheers and enjoy,
~Dietmar.

APEX 4.0 New Features Training in Bensheim/Frankfurt (04.10-05.10.2010)

2010-04-26T15:23:00.002+02:00

Following up on the other successful APEX trainings in the past, Denes and me holding our next class in September (04.10-05.10.2010). The class will be held in Bensheim (Germany), close to Frankfurt.

Oracle APEX 4.0: New Features

The class will focus clearly on conveying the most effective ways to utilize the newest and hottest features of the upcoming release 4.0.

Which are the features you will benefit the most of? What works really well and where does APEX 4.0 still have its shortcomings?

These are the topics we will cover:

An overview of all the new features.
Websheets - how can you utilize the new wiki-like functionality?
Dynamic Actions - Declarative interface to implement dynamic client-side behavior declaratively without the need to know JavaScript (e.g. show, hide, enable, disable).
Extending APEX with Plug-Ins, custom item types and custom regions.
Improved tabular forms, including declarative support for validations and additional item types.
Team Development - Facilitates the management of the application development process including Features, To-Do, Bugs and Milestones.
Improved charting engine, based on AnyChart 5.1, including declarative Flash-based Maps and Gantt charts.
Enhanced Web services - Declarative RESTful Web services together with improvements to Web service integration and capabilities.
Expanded Interactive Reports - Integrated report, icon and detail views plus compound filters, group by, email notifications, and additional save options.
Modernized Application Builder - Usability improvements including integrated application search, advisor, dashboards, highlighting current actions, and improved Administration screens.
Oracle APEX Listener - A J2EE-based alternative to mod plsql providing improved performance, direct file upload, file system-based page caching, and improved PDF printing.

The training will not be theoretical but jam-packed with hands on sessions and lots of tips and tricks to get the best results.

You can find more information about the class here.

Surely one of the highlights of this training is the Q&A session which we will have the first evening from 19:00-21:00. Bring your current APEX application to the session and we will discuss with you possible strategies and/or help with coding problems in your application right there.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Bensheim!

Regards,
~Dietmar.

APEX Stammtisch am 22.02.2009 in Siegburg

2010-01-28T18:51:00.000+01:00

The following post is targeted towards a German audience, thus it is in German:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wir (Denes Kubicek und Dietmar Aust) werden am 22 Februar 2010 um 19:00 noch einmal den APEX Stammtisch in einer lockeren Variante durchführen, einfach nur ein leckeres Bier, gutes Essen, interessante Gespräche rund um APEX und interessante Leute.
Weitere Details und die kostenlose Anmeldung findet Ihr hier ...

Wir freuen uns auf ein lockeres Kennenlernen bei einem Bier und evtl. leckerem Flammkuchen.

Viele Grüße und bis zum Stammtisch,
~Dietmar.

Jasper Reports Integration - beta release v0.8.0.0

2010-01-14T01:54:00.003+01:00

First the good news: I have finally wrapped up the Jasper Reports Integration package and made it available for download.

It is in beta quality and needs some more testing (of the code and documentation) before it should be used in production. Once it hits the first production release, the interface packages should remain stable. Until then they might change with the later beta releases.

Everybody who wants to join the beta program is more than welcome! Any feedback is welcome.

You can get all the files, infos about the architecture and the installation guides here.

Then, I really have to apologize for taking so long (I had promised to release it much earlier) and not responding to many of the emails I have received. I am really sorry for that but my life has gone haywire in the last year - and I am still recovering from that.

Update on 04.09.2010: Version 1.1.0.0 is now available: http://daust.blogspot.com/2010/09/jasper-reports-integration-v1100.html

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Book on APEX and XE published

2009-12-22T10:46:00.004+01:00

Finally! My first book on Oracle APEX has just been published and is available for sale now! Would make for a great Christmas present :)

I have teamed up with Jens-Christian Pokolm (a long time DBA from Postbank Systems, regular presenter at various Oracle conferences) and Denes Kubicek (Oracle ACE and APEX developer of the year, you know him ;).

Jens-Christian covered the Oracle XE part and Denes and me both worked on the APEX parts.

We took a very practical approach writing about the best practices we have developed through the years and many successful projects.

The book is available only in German, sorry ;).

We also provide a website for the book (http://www.apex-xe-praxis.de). How was it built? Certainly we have used Oracle APEX and XE, what else? Proof of concept ;).

Cheers and have a great Christmas,
~Dietmar.

Oracle APEX Training in Bensheim/Frankfurt (08.03.2010-10.03.2010)

2009-11-18T11:02:00.000+01:00

Following up on the other successful APEX trainings in the past, Denes and me holding our next class in September (08.03.2010-10.03.2010). The class will be held in Bensheim (Germany), close to Frankfurt.

Oracle APEX: Knowhow aus der Praxis

The class will focus clearly on conveying the best practices that Denes and me have acquired in many different APEX projects at various client sites.

We have assembled the essence of the methods, strategies and workarounds to deliver successful APEX implementations.

The training will not be theoretical but jam-packed with all the essential tools and tips to get the best results. These are all proven techniques from real world projects.

You can find more information about the class here.

Surely one of the highlights of this training are the Q&A sessions which we will have on both evenings from 19:00-21:00. Bring your current APEX application to the session and we will discuss with you possible strategies and/or help with coding problems in your application right there.

We are looking forward to see you in Bensheim!

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Speaking at the DOAG conference in November

2009-08-09T21:11:00.002+02:00

Once again this year, I will be speaking at the German Oracle User Group (DOAG) conference in Nürnberg, Germany.

The conference will be held in Nürnberg from 17.11.2009 to 19.11.2009.

The title of the presentation will be (Producing complex MS Excel reports using Oracle APEX and jXLS):

"Komplexe Excel-Berichte mit APEX und jXLS erstellen"

I have implemented a pretty cool technique on producing complex forms and reports in MS Excel based on a templating approach using the open source framework jXLS.

But it is in more general term a showcase on how to embed a java framework into an APEX application.

Hope to see you there :).

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Oracle APEX Training in Bensheim/Frankfurt (21.09.2009-23.09.2009)

2009-08-09T20:40:00.002+02:00

Following up on the other successful APEX trainings in the past, Denes and me holding our next class in September (21.09.2009-23.09.2009). The class will be held in Bensheim (Germany), close to Frankfurt.

Oracle APEX: Knowhow aus der Praxis

Speaking at OOW 2009

2009-07-26T10:35:00.002+02:00

I have just gotten my speaker invitation for Oracle Open World 2009 in San Francisco (October 11-15).

So far I have been talking about APEX at two ODTUG conferences and three DOAG conferences in Germany. So, this time it will be OOW.

Once again I will be talking about an alternative PDF printing solution with Oracle APEX, Jasper Reports:

ID#: S307883
Title: PDF printing with APEX - a cost-free alternative

I have already held the presentation at the last ODTUG conference in Monterey and the presentation was well received. There seems to be a big interest in this solution (PDF printing with APEX). Even for me, this was the reason I had built the integration in the first place ;).

I am pretty sure to have the integration kit ready to be released to the public by then. Currently I am still pretty much engaged in my customer projects and writing a book on APEX (and XE), together with Denes Kubicek and Jens-Christian Pokolm.
It will be in German only and - hey, we are already on Amazon :)

Oracle APEX und XE in der Praxis

One more thing about OOW 2009. I am really looking forward to seeing you guys again at OOW. Who will be going and where will you be staying in SF? I still have to make my reservation for a hotel.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Mike Hichwa talking about APEX 4.0

2009-07-19T12:25:00.003+02:00

On the last ODTUG conference in Monterey Mike Hichwa was giving a presentation on the new features of the upcoming release 4.0 of Oracle Application Express.

You can see the presentation slides and here the complete presentation here, since the ODTUG folks have recorded this session as well as a few others and put them online.

Lots of interesting features are coming :).

Have fun,
~Dietmar.

So Funny

2009-07-07T21:25:00.004+02:00

The photos from the last ODTUG conference in Monterey are online available.

It was really good seeing all my friends again. These conferences are really like family reunions - just without the fights ;).

Here I am talking to Joel Kallman and Marc Sewtz.

I also talked to Mike Hichwa about the one or the other new feature I would like to see in the product. Although now I do wonder what he might be thinking about my constant suggestions ;).

It looks like just one too many ;). (Thanks to Patrick for pointing this out).

It was so much fun hanging out with all of you again.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

ODTUG2009 - Excel Generation With jXLS Templates

2009-06-26T00:44:00.004+02:00

On wednesday morning (08:00 am, really early) I have been presenting at ODTUG Kaleidoskope 2009 in Monterey / California.
The presentation was about "Generating complex Excel reports with APEX and jXLS".

There I first covered your basic choices when it comes to exporting data to Microsoft Excel.
Then I showed how to integrate the open source library jXLS into your APEX applications in order to generate complex Excel sheets using a templating approach.

In more general terms this was a showcase on how to integrate any kind of open source java library into you Oracle applications.

Since I have just loaded java classes into the database and made them available via a pl/sql wrapper, you can use them in any language accessing the Oracle database and calling the interface via pl/sql.

Thus, you can leverage this in applications using Forms, Reports, APEX, PHP, Java, ... You name it.

You can download the presentation slides here.

If anybody is interested, I will put up an example on how to integrate a java framework into your APEX application.

Are you interested?

Regards,
~Dietmar.

ODTUG2009 - PDF Printing

2009-06-25T19:05:00.002+02:00

On Tuesday I have been presenting on ODTUG Kaleidoskope 2009 in Monterey / California. The presentation was about "PDF Printing with APEX - A cost free alternative". There I have shown and detailed the integration of the open source Java reporting engine "JasperReports" into Oracle Application Express for PDF and RTF printing.

For designing the reports you can easily use the graphical design tool "iReport Designer". It will generate the report definition file for you.

The combination of JasperReports and iReport Designer is a real good alternative to the very expensive reporting solution using the BI-Publisher.

You can download the presentation slides from here.

I will make this integration available for free! Right now I have very many things on my list to do, but I will make it available in the future.

If you are interested in such an integration, please drop me a note at: dietmar.aust@opal-consulting.de.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

APEX Stammtisch am 10.2.2009 in Siegburg

2009-01-28T00:53:00.005+01:00

The following post is targeted towards a German audience, thus it is in German:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wir (Denes Kubicek und Dietmar Aust) werden am 10 Februar 2009 um 19:00 noch einmal den APEX Stammtisch in einer lockeren Variante durchführen, einfach nur ein leckeres Bier, gutes Essen, interessante Gespräche rund um APEX und interessante Leute.
Weitere Details und die kostenlose Anmeldung findet Ihr hier ...

Danach werden wir dem Stammtisch ein wenig mehr Struktur geben. Bei den Treffen werden wir uns dann auf einige wenige Themen konzentrieren, die im Vorfeld bekannt gegeben werden. Die Teilnehmer können auch gerne ihre eigenen APEX Applikationen vorstellen, ein Beamer wird vorhanden sein.

Wir freuen uns auf ein lockeres Kennenlernen bei einem Bier und evtl. leckerem Flammkuchen.

Leider ist seit dem letzten Stammtisch viel zu viel Zeit vergangen. Dennoch wollen wir es noch einmal versuchen, die Veranstaltung in regelmäßigen Abständen durchzuführen.

Viele Grüße und bis zum Stammtisch,
~Dietmar.

APEX Training in Bensheim (23.03 - 25.03.2009)

2008-11-09T16:16:00.006+01:00

We (Denes Kubicek, Patrick Wolf and Dietmar Aust) are happy to announce the next APEX Training in Bensheim/Germany. Thus the rest of the post is in German.

Das nächste APEX Training findet am 23.03.2009 bis zum 25.03.2009 erneut in Bensheim bei Frankfurt statt, im dortigen Aleehotel.

Oracle APEX: Knowhow aus der Praxis

Nutzen Sie das Wissen und die Erfahrung von

Patrick Wolf, langjähriger Oracle Veteran und Senior Solution Architect bei einer Wiener IT Firma, wurde erst kürzlich vom Oracle Magazin zum „Oracle APEX Developer of the year 2007“ ausgezeichnet. Er ist weiterhin ein Oracle ACE und Betreiber des bekannten Blogs Inside Oracle APEX,

Denes Kubicek, langjährige Projekterfahrung in den Bereichen Oracle und APEX mit multisite Applikationen, diesjähriger Preisträger des "Oracle APEX Developer of the Year 2008" Awards des Oracle Magazines und sehr bekannt im Oracle APEX OTN Forum für seine Beispielapplikation und

Dietmar Aust, erfahrener Oracle Consultant mit Spezialisierung auf Oracle Apex, aktiv in den OTN Foren zu Apex und Oracle XE, mit Präsentationen auf den letzten DOAG Veranstaltungen

, um Best Practice Vorgehensweisen aus vielen erfolgreichen APEX Projekten zu lernen.

Neben einer Fülle an Informationen, die wir in vielen erfolgreichen APEX Projekten erarbeitet haben, sind insbesondere die abendlichen Sessions (von 19:00-21:00) als Highlight zu nennen.

Dort stehen wir Ihnen für zusätzliche Hands-On Sessions zur Verfügung, um die Beispiele des Tages durchzuarbeiten oder auch, um konkrete Fragestellungen in Ihren aktuellen Projekten zu diskutieren.

Insgesamt haben wir das Kursprogramm noch etwas aufgeräumt und einige Hands-on Übungen integriert.

Weitere Details zum Kurs sowie die Anmeldung finden Sie hier.

~Dietmar Aust.

Troubleshooting the 404-not found error on 9iOHS

2008-11-01T09:14:00.002+01:00

As already posted here and here, you can easily configure the plsql gateway or the dbms_epg to display the oracle errors directly in the browser instead of receiving a http 404 error and searching for the oracle error in the logfiles.

This is a very good solution for development and test environments, but not for any production system due to security implications.

Recently, I wanted to configure an older Oracle Apache (included in the Oracle 9i release of the database).
It uses the older plsql configuration of the wdbsvr.app configuration file.

Here are the instructions on how to configure APEX with that OHS:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express/howtos/howto_use9ir2ohs.html.

But how do you configure the DAD now to display the error messages directly?

You can use the following syntax for that:


error_style=Gateway
error_style=GatewayDebug
error_style=WebServer

The default is "WebServer".

See the instructions here:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/A97335_02/apps.102/a90099/config.htm#1005872

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Goodbye Carl, we will miss you

2008-10-29T07:14:00.002+01:00

Since I have heard about the death of Carl Backstrom, I am still totally shocked. I had the pleasure to meet him personally at OOW 2007 and at ODTUG 2008 in New Orleans this year. We all had a great time and he is a person who will certainly be remembered.

He left a mark on this world! He was very friendly, always helpful and very passionate about his work. And he was very good at it, too.

It really touches me and reminds me at the same time to always live our lives to the fullest!

Carl, we already miss you and wish you the best wherever you are now.

~Dietmar.

Ubiquituous computing - the future

2008-07-13T21:08:00.003+02:00

This post is only partly related to APEX - in more general terms.

Back in 1995 I was finishing my computer science degree at the University of Dortmund in Germany. For my Master's thesis I have spent a year at the Graphics Visualization and Usuability Lab (GVU) at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta / USA.

There I was working on future computing environments (in the FCE group). Especially I worked on the Cyberguide and Classroom 2000 projects.

Also, I was working as a summer intern at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) in the Silicon Valley. I supported Eric Saund with his ZombieBoard project.

There I had the chance to personally meet Mark Weiser, who did the orginal research in ubiquitous computing environments. Especially his paper "The computer for the 21st century" has become very famous.

This has always been a fascinating topic for me, how computers can support us in our everday tasks in a more subtle way to let us continue to focus on the task at hand and not force us to comply with any sort of "user interface". This way the computer steps out of the way and lets us live in "our world". The tools have to become that intuitive that you wouldn't even notice them anymore.

Today I have come across some very interesting articles / presentations I would like to share with you.

The presentation by Adam Greenfield called "Everyware- The dawning age of ubiquitous computing" has really caught my attention. It is really well presented and entertaining. It also talks a lot about the too often neglected social implications of the technology we create and the responsibility that come with it.

One thing that did strike me during his presentation was our (as designers and developers of user interfaces, e.g. with APEX) assumptions about the users and how they were supposed to interact with the software (from our point of view).

I think I will do more usuability testing of my software in the future. We need to sit down with the key users of our systems more often and actually watch them using the software. We need to understand that the way they "actually" use the software and what is "obvious" for them might be very different from what we expect.

We need to sit down and try to use the software to actually solve their business problems they needed the software for in the first place. This way we can understand what we need to do in order to build a cleaner and more transparent user interface.

Also, I have found this very cool video how the iPhone haptic user interface will change the way we interact with computer dramatically and profoundly.

Even more, the new Songdo city in South Korea (video on youtube) and other engagements in this field demonstrate how our lives and the world we live in will change dramatically.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Database modeling support in SQL Developer

2008-07-02T20:17:00.002+02:00

There is an updated statement of direction for Oracle SQL Developer availble at OTN.

Finally there will be support for data modeling using graphical tools:

Design of logical Entity Relationship Diagrams
Design of physical schemas
Reverse engineering of existing schemas
Import of existing models from Designer and CA Erwin
Support for objectrelational types and new 11g features

It took Oracle really a long time to decide on a replacement for Oracle Designer (with regards to data modeling, design capture and change propagation).

Finally it is here. Really looking forward to it. It will be available as an optional plugin for SQL Developer.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

My presentation at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2008

2008-06-27T20:52:00.004+02:00

Two weeks ago I attended the ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2008 conference in New Orleans. This was a great event.

The view from my hotel room was truly awesome:

On Saturday I did have some time to hang out with Patrick Wolf in the French Quarter for breakfast:

On the first (pre conference) day, there was an APEX symposium held. The focus was on customer success stories showing off successful real world implementations of APEX projects to add even more "street" credibility to APEX.

It was very interesting to hear about the different projects.

My presentation was about the successful implementation of two projects at the German Telecom Shops. My main struggle there has been the very tight deadlines (only a few weeks) in which I had to deliver the applications.

(Scott Spendolini and me)

(giving the presentation)

(answering questions)

I am very happy that my presentation was well received. You can download the presentation here.

Also, it was the first time for me to record my online demo and show the video during my presentation. This way I could pause the demo and explain more details where necessary. Also I wouldn't have to switch between screens so often to copy/paste information for the demo. Sometimes this makes a presentation a bit hard to follow. The tool I used for that was the Camtasia Studio by Techsmith. I am very pleased with the produced results.

I really enjoyed hanging out with the APEX development team and meeting really nice folks I know from the Oracle APEX forum.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

APEX Advanced Training held in Munich

2008-06-27T17:10:00.002+02:00

It is a little bit late, but I still wanted to share the photos from our last Advanced APEX Training held in Munich on 02.06.2008-04.06.2008.

Once again, (Denes Kubicek, Patrick Wolf and me) held another APEX Advanced Training in Munich.

Although the class wasn't as packed as the previous one, it was again very successful and the participants enjoyed the training, judging by their feedback. And we truly enjoyed it, too.

The class covered the complete life cycle of an APEX project, starting with the analysis and planning, design, indepth coverage of the implementation, PDF reporting alternatives, forms, reports, tabular forms, AJAX, Javascript and ended with the deployment, change propagation and administration.

We also covered the ApexLib framework and other extensions as well as our favourite tools we work with. It was the essence of all the lessons we have learned in our previous projects delivering successful and scalable APEX solutions.

We were especially happy to have Marc Sewtz from Oracle join us with two presentations. He is one of the managers responsible for the development of Oracle Application Express (APEX).

(in the picture you see Patrick, Denes, Dietmar and Marc from left to right)

He was talking about Oracle SQL Developer, also showing the integration with APEX: deployment, browsing the data dictionary information of the applications and also how to debug an APEX application.

Futhermore he was giving us some insight about the possible new features of the next APEX release, targeted for 2009. There is no definite feature list at this time.

Many of the packaged applications will become multi-tenant capable.

Websheets will become one of the major features for the next release. Based on the interactive reports (part of the 3.1 release) it will be possible to edit and share the information.

Forms Migration will be another hot topic for the next release.

The APEX framework will be opened up further, giving us a documented PLSQL API and custom item types.

There will be declarative client side validations using AJAX, cascading AJAX select lists, better error handling, more native authentication schemes (NTLM, OpenID, LDAP/SSL) and finally a new DHTML tree component as well as a new DHTML calendar popup for date fields.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Troubleshooting the 404-not found error on XE

2008-04-13T17:18:00.010+02:00

A few weeks ago, Patrick Wolf, Denes Kubicek and me held an advanced APEX training in Bensheim.

After the training, I helped someone from the class troubleshoot an APEX issue. He received a 404 error sporadically.

How do you find the database error which caused the Apache to show the 404-error?

Usually the error is found in the Apache error log. But you can also configure the mod_plsql to show more detailed information in the browser. This is very useful but should only used in development environments due to security reasons. Patrick wrote a nice blog posting about it.

But using Oracle Express Edition (XE) you don't have an Apache / mod_plsql configuration.
How do you find the errors here?

Since Oracle XE uses the http listener of the XMLDB, it needs to be configured through the DBMS_EPG interface. The documentation can be found here.

To see the error log similar to Apache, logon as SYSTEM via SQL*Plus and execute:

SQL>execute dbms_epg.set_global_attribute('log-level', 3);

The error log will go to the database trace file app/oracle/admin/XE/bdump/xe_s00?_????.trc.
Please ignore the bogus error message "Embedded PL/SQL Gateway: Unknown attribute 3" in the error log.

The log levels are:

0 - LOG_EMERG
1 - LOG_ALERT
2 - LOG_CRIT
3 - LOG_ERR
4 - LOG_WARNING
5 - LOG_NOTICE
6 - LOG_INFO
7 - LOG_DEBUG

To turn off the error logging, execute the following as SYSTEM:

SQL>execute dbms_epg.set_global_attribute('log-level', 0);

In order to show the error messages in the browser, you would configure parameter error-style using the DBMS_EPG.

Almost all parameters of the mod_plsql are configurable in the DBMS_EPG, too. They are just named differently (why?). You can find the mapping in the Oracle documentation.

So, how can we enable the debug style messages in XE. It is easy, just connect as SYSTEM to the database and issue the following command:

SQL>exec dbms_epg.set_dad_attribute('APEX', 'error-style', 'DebugStyle');

In order to revert to the standard message format, issue:

SQL>exec dbms_epg.delete_dad_attribute('APEX', 'error-style');

Then your browser will show the following error message instead of the standard 404-error page:

That's it.

Now I have shown how to configure the DAD for XE, but how can you see the current configuration? My next post will cover these instructions.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

APEX Advanced Training in Munich (02.06.2008 - 04.06.2008)

2008-04-09T22:47:00.005+02:00

After the successful first training event in March we (Denes Kubicek, Patrick Wolf and Dietmar Aust) are happy to announce the second APEX Advanced Training in Munich. The class three day training (02.06.2008 - 04.06.2008) will be held in the Arabella Sheraton Westpark Hotel.

More detailed information follows in German:

Wir freuen uns, folgende Oracle Application Express (APEX) Schulung für Fortgeschrittene bekanntgeben zu können:

Oracle APEX: Fortgeschrittene Techniken aus der Praxis

Nutzen Sie das Wissen und die Erfahrung von

Patrick Wolf, langjähriger Oracle Veteran und Senior Solution Architect bei einer Wiener IT Firma, wurde erst kürzlich vom Oracle Magazin zum „Oracle APEX Developer of the year 2007“ ausgezeichnet. Er ist weiterhin ein Oracle ACE und Betreiber des bekannten Blogs Inside Oracle APEX

Dietmar Aust, erfahrener Oracle Consultant mit Spezialisierung auf Oracle Apex, aktiv in den OTN Foren zu Apex und Oracle XE, mit Präsentationen auf den letzten DOAG Veranstaltungen,

Denes Kubicek, langjährige Projekterfahrung in den Bereichen Oracle und ApEx mit multisite Applikationen und sehr bekannt im Oracle APEX OTN Forum für seine Beispielapplikation und

, um fortgeschrittene Techniken und Best Practice Vorgehensweisen aus vielen erfolgreichen Apex Projekten zu lernen.

Neben einer Fülle an Informationen, die wir in vielen erfolgreichen APEX Projekten erarbeitet haben, sind insbesondere die abendlichen Sessions (von 19:00-21:00) als Highlight zu nennen.

Dort stehen wir Ihnen für zusätzliche Hands-On Sessions zur Verfügung, um die Beispiele des Tages durchzuarbeiten oder auch, um konkrete Fragestellungen in Ihren aktuellen Projekten zu diskutieren.

Weitere Details zum Kurs sowie die Anmeldung finden Sie hier.

~Dietmar.

APEX Advanced Training in Germany - a success!

2008-03-21T20:35:00.007+01:00

We (Denes Kubicek, Patrick Wolf and Dietmar Aust) finally held our first APEX Advanced Training in Germany.

The class was quickly booked out having 30 participants. It was a true success judging by the feedback from the participants. And we truly enjoyed it, too.

The class covered the complete life cycle of an APEX project, starting with the analysis and planning, design, indepth coverage of the implementation, PDF reporting alternatives, forms, reports, tabular forms, AJAX, Javascript and ended with the deployment, change propagation and administration.

We also covered the ApexLib framework and other extensions as well as our favourite tools we work with. It was the essence of all the lessons we have learned in our previous projects delivering successful and scalable APEX solutions.

During the evenings we joined the group for another hands-on session from 7-9 pm. They were given the opportunity to discuss the samples of the class as well as their problems in their current projects. This opportunity and the extensive sample application was perceived as a big plus of the class.

We were especially happy to have Carsten Czarski from Oracle join us with a presentation. He was talking about the various possibilities to leverage the Oracle database features in APEX applications, i.e. XML, web services, Oracle Text and Analytic Functions. He also talked about the current release 3.1 of APEX as well as the upcoming features in 4.0.

We will shortly announce the next training which will be held in June in Munich.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

APEX 3.1 released!

2008-03-02T00:48:00.001+01:00

Finally, the much anticipated release of APEX 3.1 has hit the streets!

You can download it here.

Make sure to check out the new features list and the sample application showcasing the new features.

Also, there are three more Oracle by Examples tutorials specific to release 3.1.

Enjoy!
~Dietmar.

APEX 3.1 is coming closer ...

2008-02-28T10:13:00.002+01:00

The release date of Oracle APEX 3.1 seems to be coming closer :). The hosted online version on apex.oracle.com has been upgraded yesterday.

I presume they will just fix some minor bugs and resolve some performance issues, then it should be ready for prime time !!!

Many interesting features are coming along, see

the new features list
a sample application showcasing the new features
Patrick's blog posts about some not so obvious interesting features

Greetinx,
~Dietmar.

Customer success story at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2008

2008-01-31T21:49:00.000+01:00

I will be presenting two customer success stories at the ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2008 in New Orleans this year. This is about the work I have done for the German Telecom Shops (T-Punkt Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH). This presentation is not so much about the technical details but more about the business related stuff.

Why ist this application important for the customer? What were the greatest benefits? Why was APEX chosen as a technology. How did this technology perform compared to the usual suspects ;) ?

Thanks to Scott Spendolini, he invited me to give this presentation. Hope to finally meet him there.

And I do look forward to meet up again with all the APEX developers and enthusiasts around the world, like Joel Kallman, Patrick Wolf, Carl Backstrom, Dimitri Gielis, John Scott (this time spelled correctly ;), David Peake, ... and meet some new ones, too.

It will be real fun to come back to New Orleans. I have been there in 1996 for mardi gras, it was a pure blast !!! I wonder how things have changed since Katrina.

Hope to see you there,
~Dietmar.

Gathering Apex Installation Requirements

2008-01-22T20:31:00.000+01:00

Did you ever wonder how to determine the installation requirements for Apex?

Which steps are really neccessary? Is the JavaVM installed? What about XML DB? What about Oracle Text? How can you find out?

And even more, what if you don't have access to a DBA account on the target instance? What information needs to be gathered by the DBA?

I have created a simple script to gather all relevant information.

Comments are welcome!

In another post I might explore a way to programmatically analyze the outcome and determine the exact steps to be taken.

Here is the script:


/*
 * Check installation requirements for Oracle Application Express 3.0.1
 *
 * http://download-uk.oracle.com/docs/cd/B32472_01/doc/install.300/b32468/overview.htm
 * 
 * Version  Date        Author            Comment
 * #####################################################################
 * 0.5.0    22.01.2008  D. Aust           initial creation
 * 
 */

SET serveroutput on
set linesize 200
set pagesize 10000
set trimspool on
SPOOL oracle_info.lst

PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** database version must be >= 9.2.0.3
PROMPT ***

DECLARE
   l_version         VARCHAR2 (100);
   l_compatibility   VARCHAR2 (100);
BEGIN
   DBMS_UTILITY.db_version (VERSION            => l_version,
                            COMPATIBILITY      => l_compatibility
                           );
   DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (   'Version: '
                         || l_version
                         || '  Compatibility: '
                         || l_compatibility
                        );
END;
/

PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** v$version
PROMPT ***
column banner format A100;
SELECT banner
  FROM v$version;

PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** installed components
PROMPT ***
column comp_id format A15;
column comp_name format A40;
column version format A15;
column status format A10;
column schema format A15;
SELECT comp_id, comp_name, VERSION, status, SCHEMA
  FROM dba_registry;

PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** installed options
PROMPT ***
column parameter format A50;
column value format A10;
SELECT parameter, value
  FROM v$option;

PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** parameters
PROMPT ***
COLUMN name format A30;
COLUMN value format A40;
COLUMN isdefault format A10;
COLUMN ismodified format A10;
COLUMN isadjusted format A10;
COLUMN description format A80;
SELECT   NAME, VALUE, isdefault, ismodified, isadjusted, description
    FROM v$parameter
ORDER BY NAME;


PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** tablespaces
PROMPT ***
COLUMN name format A30;
COLUMN value format A40;
select  TABLESPACE_NAME,
 round(sum(BYTES) / 1024 / 1024, 2) Total_free_space_MB,
    round(max(BYTES) / 1024 / 1024, 2) largest_free_extent_MB
from  dba_free_space
group  by TABLESPACE_NAME
order   by tablespace_name;

PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** version of the owa_toolkit, must be >= 10.1.2.0.6
PROMPT ***
select owa_util.get_version OWA_VERSION from dual;

PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** NLS database parameters
PROMPT ***
select * from nls_database_parameters;

PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** NLS session parameters;
PROMPT ***
select * from nls_session_parameters;

PROMPT ***
PROMPT *** 
PROMPT ***
COLUMN param format A20;
COLUMN value format A60;
SELECT 'SESSION_USER' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'SESSION_USER') value FROM DUAL
union all
SELECT 'CURRENT_SCHEMA' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'CURRENT_SCHEMA') value FROM DUAL
union all
SELECT 'DB_DOMAIN' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'DB_DOMAIN') value  FROM DUAL
union all
SELECT 'DB_NAME' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'DB_NAME')  value FROM DUAL
union all
SELECT 'DB_UNIQUE_NAME' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'DB_UNIQUE_NAME')  value FROM DUAL
union all
--SELECT 'IP_ADDRESS' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'IP_ADDRESS')  value FROM DUAL
--union all
--SELECT 'HOST' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'HOST')  value FROM DUAL
--union all
SELECT 'SERVICE_NAME' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'SERVICE_NAME') value  FROM DUAL
union all
SELECT 'SERVER_HOST' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'SERVER_HOST') value  FROM DUAL
union all
SELECT 'SERVER_HOST_NAME' param, UTL_INADDR.get_host_name value FROM dual
union all
SELECT 'SERVER_ADDRESS' param, UTL_INADDR.get_host_address value from dual;
--union all
--SELECT 'TERMINAL' param, SYS_CONTEXT ('USERENV', 'TERMINAL') value  FROM DUAL;
   
   
spool off; 

--host start oracle_info.lst

exit

Run the script as SYS, SYSTEM or any other DBA or a normal user having SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE privileges.

It will generate a file called oracle_info.lst.

Here is a sample output:


***
*** database version must be >= 9.2.0.3
***
Version: 10.2.0.1.0  Compatibility: 10.2.0.1.0

PL/SQL-Prozedur erfolgreich abgeschlossen.

***
*** v$version
***

BANNER
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Prod
PL/SQL Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Production
CORE 10.2.0.1.0 Production
TNS for 32-bit Windows: Version 10.2.0.1.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 10.2.0.1.0 - Production

***
*** installed components
***

COMP_ID         COMP_NAME                                VERSION         STATUS     SCHEMA
--------------- ---------------------------------------- --------------- ---------- ---------------
APEX            Oracle Application Express               2.2.0.00.32     VALID      FLOWS_020200
EM              Oracle Enterprise Manager                10.2.0.1.0      VALID      SYSMAN
SDO             Spatial                                  10.2.0.1.0      VALID      MDSYS
ORDIM           Oracle interMedia                        10.2.0.1.0      VALID      ORDSYS
AMD             OLAP Catalog                             10.2.0.1.0      VALID      OLAPSYS
XDB             Oracle XML Database                      10.2.0.1.0      VALID      XDB
CONTEXT         Oracle Text                              10.2.0.1.0      VALID      CTXSYS
EXF             Oracle Expression Filter                 10.2.0.1.0      VALID      EXFSYS
RUL             Oracle Rules Manager                     10.2.0.1.0      VALID      EXFSYS
OWM             Oracle Workspace Manager                 10.2.0.1.0      VALID      WMSYS
ODM             Oracle Data Mining                       10.2.0.1.0      VALID      DMSYS
CATALOG         Oracle Database Catalog Views            10.2.0.1.0      VALID      SYS
CATPROC         Oracle Database Packages and Types       10.2.0.1.0      VALID      SYS
JAVAVM          JServer JAVA Virtual Machine             10.2.0.1.0      VALID      SYS
XML             Oracle XDK                               10.2.0.1.0      VALID      SYS
CATJAVA         Oracle Database Java Packages            10.2.0.1.0      VALID      SYS
APS             OLAP Analytic Workspace                  10.2.0.1.0      VALID      SYS
XOQ             Oracle OLAP API                          10.2.0.1.0      VALID      SYS

18 Zeilen ausgewählt.

***
*** installed options
***

PARAMETER                                          VALUE
-------------------------------------------------- ----------
Partitioning                                       TRUE
Objects                                            TRUE
Real Application Clusters                          FALSE
Advanced replication                               TRUE
Bit-mapped indexes                                 TRUE
Connection multiplexing                            TRUE
Connection pooling                                 TRUE
Database queuing                                   TRUE
Incremental backup and recovery                    TRUE
Instead-of triggers                                TRUE
Parallel backup and recovery                       TRUE
Parallel execution                                 TRUE
Parallel load                                      TRUE
Point-in-time tablespace recovery                  TRUE
Fine-grained access control                        TRUE
Proxy authentication/authorization                 TRUE
Change Data Capture                                TRUE
Plan Stability                                     TRUE
Online Index Build                                 TRUE
Coalesce Index                                     TRUE
Managed Standby                                    TRUE
Materialized view rewrite                          TRUE
Materialized view warehouse refresh                TRUE
Database resource manager                          TRUE
Spatial                                            TRUE
Visual Information Retrieval                       TRUE
Export transportable tablespaces                   TRUE
Transparent Application Failover                   TRUE
Fast-Start Fault Recovery                          TRUE
Sample Scan                                        TRUE
Duplexed backups                                   TRUE
Java                                               TRUE
OLAP Window Functions                              TRUE
Block Media Recovery                               TRUE
Fine-grained Auditing                              TRUE
Application Role                                   TRUE
Enterprise User Security                           TRUE
Oracle Data Guard                                  TRUE
Oracle Label Security                              FALSE
OLAP                                               TRUE
Table compression                                  TRUE
Join index                                         TRUE
Trial Recovery                                     TRUE
Data Mining                                        TRUE
Online Redefinition                                TRUE
Streams Capture                                    TRUE
File Mapping                                       TRUE
Block Change Tracking                              TRUE
Flashback Table                                    TRUE
Flashback Database                                 TRUE
Data Mining Scoring Engine                         FALSE
Transparent Data Encryption                        TRUE
Backup Encryption                                  TRUE
Unused Block Compression                           TRUE

54 Zeilen ausgewählt.

***
*** parameters
***

NAME                           VALUE                                    ISDEFAULT  ISMODIFIED ISADJUSTED DESCRIPTION
------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
active_instance_count                                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of active instances in the cluster database
aq_tm_processes                0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of AQ Time Managers to start
archive_lag_target             0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Maximum number of seconds of redos the standby could lose
asm_diskgroups                                                          TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      disk groups to mount automatically
asm_diskstring                                                          TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      disk set locations for discovery
asm_power_limit                1                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of processes for disk rebalancing
audit_file_dest                D:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\ADMIN\ODS\ADUMP        FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      Directory in which auditing files are to reside
audit_sys_operations           FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enable sys auditing
audit_trail                    NONE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enable system auditing
background_core_dump           partial                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Core Size for Background Processes
background_dump_dest           D:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\ADMIN\ODS\BDUMP        FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      Detached process dump directory
backup_tape_io_slaves          FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      BACKUP Tape I/O slaves
bitmap_merge_area_size         1048576                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      maximum memory allow for BITMAP MERGE
blank_trimming                 FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      blank trimming semantics parameter
buffer_pool_keep                                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Number of database blocks/latches in keep buffer pool
buffer_pool_recycle                                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Number of database blocks/latches in recycle buffer pool
circuits                                                                TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max number of circuits
cluster_database               FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      if TRUE startup in cluster database mode
cluster_database_instances     1                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of instances to use for sizing cluster db SGA structures
cluster_interconnects                                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      interconnects for RAC use
commit_point_strength          1                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Bias this node has toward not preparing in a two-phase commit
commit_write                                                            TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      transaction commit log write behaviour
compatible                     10.2.0.1.0                               FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      Database will be completely compatible with this software version
control_file_record_keep_time  7                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      control file record keep time in days
control_files                  D:\ORACLE\ORADATA\ODS\CONTROL01.CTL, D:\ FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      control file names list
                               ORACLE\ORADATA\ODS\CONTROL02.CTL, D:\ORA
                               CLE\ORADATA\ODS\CONTROL03.CTL

core_dump_dest                 D:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\ADMIN\ODS\CDUMP        FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      Core dump directory
cpu_count                      2                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of CPUs for this instance
create_bitmap_area_size        8388608                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size of create bitmap buffer for bitmap index
create_stored_outlines                                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      create stored outlines for DML statements
cursor_sharing                 EXACT                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      cursor sharing mode
cursor_space_for_time          FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      use more memory in order to get faster execution
db_block_buffers               0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Number of database blocks cached in memory
db_block_checking              FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      header checking and data and index block checking
db_block_checksum              TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      store checksum in db blocks and check during reads
db_block_size                  8192                                     FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      Size of database block in bytes
db_cache_advice                ON                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Buffer cache sizing advisory
db_cache_size                  0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Size of DEFAULT buffer pool for standard block size buffers
db_create_file_dest                                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      default database location
db_create_online_log_dest_1                                             TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      online log/controlfile destination #1
db_create_online_log_dest_2                                             TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      online log/controlfile destination #2
db_create_online_log_dest_3                                             TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      online log/controlfile destination #3
db_create_online_log_dest_4                                             TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      online log/controlfile destination #4
db_create_online_log_dest_5                                             TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      online log/controlfile  destination #5
db_domain                                                               FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      directory part of global database name stored with CREATE DATABASE
db_file_multiblock_read_count  16                                       FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      db block to be read each IO
db_file_name_convert                                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      datafile name convert patterns and strings for standby/clone db
db_files                       200                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max allowable # db files
db_flashback_retention_target  1440                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Maximum Flashback Database log retention time in minutes.
db_keep_cache_size             0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Size of KEEP buffer pool for standard block size buffers
db_name                        ODS                                      FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      database name specified in CREATE DATABASE
db_recovery_file_dest          D:\oracle\product/flash_recovery_area    FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      default database recovery file location
db_recovery_file_dest_size     2147483648                               FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      database recovery files size limit
db_recycle_cache_size          0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Size of RECYCLE buffer pool for standard block size buffers
db_unique_name                 ODS                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Database Unique Name
dbwr_io_slaves                 0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      DBWR I/O slaves
db_writer_processes            1                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of background database writer  processes to start
db_16k_cache_size              0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Size of cache for 16K buffers
db_2k_cache_size               0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Size of cache for 2K buffers
db_32k_cache_size              0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Size of cache for 32K buffers
db_4k_cache_size               0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Size of cache for 4K buffers
db_8k_cache_size               0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Size of cache for 8K buffers
ddl_wait_for_locks             FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Disable NOWAIT DML lock acquisitions
dg_broker_config_file1         D:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\10.2.0\DATABASE\DR1ODS TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      data guard broker configuration file #1
                               .DAT

dg_broker_config_file2         D:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\10.2.0\DATABASE\DR2ODS TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      data guard broker configuration file #2
                               .DAT

dg_broker_start                FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      start Data Guard broker framework (DMON process)
disk_asynch_io                 TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Use asynch I/O for random access devices
dispatchers                    (PROTOCOL=TCP) (SERVICE=ODSXDB)          FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      specifications of dispatchers
distributed_lock_timeout       60                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of seconds a distributed transaction waits for a lock
dml_locks                      748                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      dml locks - one for each table modified in a transaction
drs_start                      FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      start DG Broker monitor (DMON process)
event                                                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      debug event control - default null string
fal_client                                                              TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      FAL client
fal_server                                                              TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      FAL server list
fast_start_io_target           0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Upper bound on recovery reads
fast_start_mttr_target         0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      MTTR target of forward crash recovery in seconds
fast_start_parallel_rollback   LOW                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max number of parallel recovery slaves that may be used
fileio_network_adapters                                                 TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Network Adapters for File I/O
file_mapping                   FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enable file mapping
filesystemio_options                                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      IO operations on filesystem files
fixed_date                     NONE                                     FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      fixed SYSDATE value
gc_files_to_locks                                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      mapping between file numbers and global cache locks
gcs_server_processes           0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of background gcs server processes to start
global_context_pool_size                                                TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Global Application Context Pool Size in Bytes
global_names                   FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enforce that database links have same name as remote database
hash_area_size                 131072                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size of in-memory hash work area
hi_shared_memory_address       0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      SGA starting address (high order 32-bits on 64-bit platforms)
hs_autoregister                TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enable automatic server DD updates in HS agent self-registration
ifile                                                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      include file in init.ora
instance_groups                                                         TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      list of instance group names
instance_name                  ods                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      instance name supported by the instance
instance_number                0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      instance number
instance_type                  RDBMS                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      type of instance to be executed
java_max_sessionspace_size     0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max allowed size in bytes of a Java sessionspace
java_pool_size                 0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size in bytes of java pool
java_soft_sessionspace_limit   0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      warning limit on size in bytes of a Java sessionspace
job_queue_processes            10                                       FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      number of job queue slave processes
large_pool_size                0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size in bytes of large pool
ldap_directory_access          NONE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      RDBMS's LDAP access option
license_max_sessions           0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      maximum number of non-system user sessions allowed
license_max_users              0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      maximum number of named users that can be created in the database
license_sessions_warning       0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      warning level for number of non-system user sessions
local_listener                 LISTENER_ODS                             FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      local listener
lock_name_space                                                         TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      lock name space used for generating lock names for standby/clone database
lock_sga                       FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Lock entire SGA in physical memory
log_archive_config                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      log archive config parameter
log_archive_dest                                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination text string
log_archive_dest_state_1       enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #1 state text string
log_archive_dest_state_10      enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #10 state text string
log_archive_dest_state_2       enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #2 state text string
log_archive_dest_state_3       enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #3 state text string
log_archive_dest_state_4       enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #4 state text string
log_archive_dest_state_5       enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #5 state text string
log_archive_dest_state_6       enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #6 state text string
log_archive_dest_state_7       enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #7 state text string
log_archive_dest_state_8       enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #8 state text string
log_archive_dest_state_9       enable                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #9 state text string
log_archive_dest_1                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #1 text string
log_archive_dest_10                                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #10 text string
log_archive_dest_2                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #2 text string
log_archive_dest_3                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #3 text string
log_archive_dest_4                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #4 text string
log_archive_dest_5                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #5 text string
log_archive_dest_6                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #6 text string
log_archive_dest_7                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #7 text string
log_archive_dest_8                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #8 text string
log_archive_dest_9                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination #9 text string
log_archive_duplex_dest                                                 TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      duplex archival destination text string
log_archive_format             ARC%S_%R.%T                              TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      archival destination format
log_archive_local_first        TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Establish EXPEDITE attribute default value
log_archive_max_processes      2                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      maximum number of active ARCH processes
log_archive_min_succeed_dest   1                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      minimum number of archive destinations that must succeed
log_archive_start              FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      start archival process on SGA initialization
log_archive_trace              0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Establish archivelog operation tracing level
log_buffer                     7024640                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      redo circular buffer size
log_checkpoint_interval        0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      # redo blocks checkpoint threshold
log_checkpoints_to_alert       FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      log checkpoint begin/end to alert file
log_checkpoint_timeout         1800                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Maximum time interval between checkpoints in seconds
log_file_name_convert                                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      logfile name convert patterns and strings for standby/clone db
logmnr_max_persistent_sessions 1                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      maximum number of threads to mine
max_commit_propagation_delay   0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Max age of new snapshot in .01 seconds
max_dispatchers                                                         TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max number of dispatchers
max_dump_file_size             UNLIMITED                                TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Maximum size (blocks) of dump file
max_enabled_roles              150                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max number of roles a user can have enabled
max_shared_servers                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max number of shared servers
nls_calendar                                                            TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS calendar system name
nls_comp                                                                TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS comparison
nls_currency                                                            TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS local currency symbol
nls_date_format                                                         TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS Oracle date format
nls_date_language                                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS date language name
nls_dual_currency                                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Dual currency symbol
nls_iso_currency                                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS ISO currency territory name
nls_language                   AMERICAN                                 TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS language name
nls_length_semantics           BYTE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      create columns using byte or char semantics by default
nls_nchar_conv_excp            FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS raise an exception instead of allowing implicit conversion
nls_numeric_characters                                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS numeric characters
nls_sort                                                                TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS linguistic definition name
nls_territory                  AMERICA                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      NLS territory name
nls_time_format                                                         TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      time format
nls_timestamp_format                                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      time stamp format
nls_timestamp_tz_format                                                 TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      timestampe with timezone format
nls_time_tz_format                                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      time with timezone format
object_cache_max_size_percent  10                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      percentage of maximum size over optimal of the user session's object cache
object_cache_optimal_size      102400                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      optimal size of the user session's object cache in bytes
olap_page_pool_size            0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size of the olap page pool in bytes
open_cursors                   300                                      FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      max # cursors per session
open_links                     4                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max # open links per session
open_links_per_instance        4                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max # open links per instance
optimizer_dynamic_sampling     2                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      optimizer dynamic sampling
optimizer_features_enable      10.2.0.1                                 TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      optimizer plan compatibility parameter
optimizer_index_caching        0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      optimizer percent index caching
optimizer_index_cost_adj       100                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      optimizer index cost adjustment
optimizer_mode                 ALL_ROWS                                 TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      optimizer mode
optimizer_secure_view_merging  TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      optimizer secure view merging and predicate pushdown/movearound
os_authent_prefix              OPS$                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      prefix for auto-logon accounts
os_roles                       FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      retrieve roles from the operating system
O7_DICTIONARY_ACCESSIBILITY    FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Version 7 Dictionary Accessibility Support
parallel_adaptive_multi_user   TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enable adaptive setting of degree for multiple user streams
parallel_automatic_tuning      FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enable intelligent defaults for parallel execution parameters
parallel_execution_message_siz 2148                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      message buffer size for parallel execution
e

parallel_instance_group                                                 TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      instance group to use for all parallel operations
parallel_max_servers           40                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      maximum parallel query servers per instance
parallel_min_percent           0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      minimum percent of threads required for parallel query
parallel_min_servers           0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      minimum parallel query servers per instance
parallel_server                FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      if TRUE startup in parallel server mode
parallel_server_instances      1                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of instances to use for sizing OPS SGA structures
parallel_threads_per_cpu       2                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of parallel execution threads per CPU
pga_aggregate_target           243269632                                FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      Target size for the aggregate PGA memory consumed by the instance
plsql_ccflags                                                           TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      PL/SQL ccflags
plsql_code_type                INTERPRETED                              TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      PL/SQL code-type
plsql_compiler_flags           INTERPRETED, NON_DEBUG                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      PL/SQL compiler flags
plsql_debug                    FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      PL/SQL debug
plsql_native_library_dir                                                TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      plsql native library dir
plsql_native_library_subdir_co 0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      plsql native library number of subdirectories
unt

plsql_optimize_level           2                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      PL/SQL optimize level
plsql_v2_compatibility         FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      PL/SQL version 2.x compatibility flag
plsql_warnings                 DISABLE:ALL                              TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      PL/SQL compiler warnings settings
pre_page_sga                   FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      pre-page sga for process
processes                      150                                      FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      user processes
query_rewrite_enabled          TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      allow rewrite of queries using materialized views if enabled
query_rewrite_integrity        enforced                                 TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      perform rewrite using materialized views with desired integrity
rdbms_server_dn                                                         TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      RDBMS's Distinguished Name
read_only_open_delayed         FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      if TRUE delay opening of read only files until first access
recovery_parallelism           0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of server processes to use for parallel recovery
recyclebin                     on                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      recyclebin processing
remote_archive_enable          true                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      remote archival enable setting
remote_dependencies_mode       TIMESTAMP                                TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      remote-procedure-call dependencies mode parameter
remote_listener                                                         TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      remote listener
remote_login_passwordfile      EXCLUSIVE                                FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      password file usage parameter
remote_os_authent              FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      allow non-secure remote clients to use auto-logon accounts
remote_os_roles                FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      allow non-secure remote clients to use os roles
replication_dependency_trackin TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      tracking dependency for Replication parallel propagation
g

resource_limit                 FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      master switch for resource limit
resource_manager_plan                                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      resource mgr top plan
resumable_timeout              0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      set resumable_timeout
rollback_segments                                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      undo segment list
serial_reuse                   disable                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      reuse the frame segments
service_names                  ODS                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      service names supported by the instance
session_cached_cursors         20                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Number of cursors to cache in a session.
session_max_open_files         10                                       TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      maximum number of open files allowed per session
sessions                       170                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      user and system sessions
sga_max_size                   603979776                                FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      max total SGA size
sga_target                     603979776                                FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      Target size of SGA
shadow_core_dump               partial                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Core Size for Shadow Processes
shared_memory_address          0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      SGA starting address (low order 32-bits on 64-bit platforms)
shared_pool_reserved_size      4823449                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size in bytes of reserved area of shared pool
shared_pool_size               0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size in bytes of shared pool
shared_servers                 1                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of shared servers to start up
shared_server_sessions                                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max number of shared server sessions
skip_unusable_indexes          TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      skip unusable indexes if set to TRUE
smtp_out_server                                                         TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      utl_smtp server and port configuration parameter
sort_area_retained_size        0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size of in-memory sort work area retained between fetch calls
sort_area_size                 65536                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size of in-memory sort work area
spfile                         D:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\10.2.0\DBS\SPFILEODS.O FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      server parameter file
                               RA

sql_trace                      FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enable SQL trace
sqltune_category               DEFAULT                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Category qualifier for applying hintsets
sql_version                    NATIVE                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      sql language version parameter for compatibility issues
sql92_security                 FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      require select privilege for searched update/delete
standby_archive_dest           %ORACLE_HOME%\RDBMS                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      standby database archivelog destination text string
standby_file_management        MANUAL                                   TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      if auto then files are created/dropped automatically on standby
star_transformation_enabled    FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enable the use of star transformation
statistics_level               TYPICAL                                  TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      statistics level
streams_pool_size              0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      size in bytes of the streams pool
tape_asynch_io                 TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Use asynch I/O requests for tape devices
thread                         0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Redo thread to mount
timed_os_statistics            0                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      internal os statistic gathering interval in seconds
timed_statistics               TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      maintain internal timing statistics
trace_enabled                  TRUE                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      enable KST tracing
tracefile_identifier                                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      trace file custom identifier
transactions                   187                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      max. number of concurrent active transactions
transactions_per_rollback_segm 5                                        TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      number of active transactions per rollback segment
ent

undo_management                AUTO                                     FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      instance runs in SMU mode if TRUE, else in RBU mode
undo_retention                 900                                      TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      undo retention in seconds
undo_tablespace                UNDOTBS1                                 FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      use/switch undo tablespace
use_indirect_data_buffers      FALSE                                    TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      Enable indirect data buffers (very large SGA on 32-bit platforms)
user_dump_dest                 D:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\ADMIN\ODS\UDUMP        FALSE      FALSE      FALSE      User process dump directory
utl_file_dir                                                            TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      utl_file accessible directories list
workarea_size_policy           AUTO                                     TRUE       FALSE      FALSE      policy used to size SQL working areas (MANUAL/AUTO)

257 Zeilen ausgewählt.

***
*** tablespaces
***

TABLESPACE_NAME                TOTAL_FREE_SPACE_MB LARGEST_FREE_EXTENT_MB
------------------------------ ------------------- ----------------------
ABIT                                        515,81                 510,94
EXAMPLE                                      22,63                  19,81
SHDB                                        490,44                 487,94
SYSAUX                                          19                   2,94
SYSTEM                                        2,88                   1,94
UNDOTBS1                                    2589,5                2571,94
USERS                                       656,19                   56,5

7 Zeilen ausgewählt.

***
*** version of the owa_toolkit, must be >= 10.1.2.0.6
***

OWA_VERSION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.1.2.0.0

***
*** NLS database parameters
***

PARAMETER                                          VALUE
-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
NLS_LANGUAGE                                       AMERICAN
NLS_TERRITORY                                      AMERICA
NLS_CURRENCY                                       $
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY                                   AMERICA
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS                             .,
NLS_CHARACTERSET                                   WE8MSWIN1252
NLS_CALENDAR                                       GREGORIAN
NLS_DATE_FORMAT                                    DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE                                  AMERICAN
NLS_SORT                                           BINARY
NLS_TIME_FORMAT                                    HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT                               DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT                                 HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT                            DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY                                  $
NLS_COMP                                           BINARY
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS                               BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP                                FALSE
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET                             AL16UTF16
NLS_RDBMS_VERSION                                  10.2.0.1.0

20 Zeilen ausgewählt.

***
*** NLS session parameters
***

PARAMETER                                          VALUE
-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
NLS_LANGUAGE                                       GERMAN
NLS_TERRITORY                                      GERMANY
NLS_CURRENCY                                       €
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY                                   GERMANY
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS                             ,.
NLS_CALENDAR                                       GREGORIAN
NLS_DATE_FORMAT                                    DD.MM.RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE                                  GERMAN
NLS_SORT                                           GERMAN
NLS_TIME_FORMAT                                    HH24:MI:SSXFF
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT                               DD.MM.RR HH24:MI:SSXFF
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT                                 HH24:MI:SSXFF TZR
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT                            DD.MM.RR HH24:MI:SSXFF TZR
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY                                  €
NLS_COMP                                           BINARY
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS                               BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP                                FALSE

17 Zeilen ausgewählt.

***
***
***

PARAM                VALUE
-------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------
SESSION_USER         SYSTEM
CURRENT_SCHEMA       SYSTEM
DB_DOMAIN
DB_NAME              ODS
DB_UNIQUE_NAME       ODS
SERVICE_NAME         SYS$USERS
SERVER_HOST          daust3
SERVER_HOST_NAME     DAUST3
SERVER_ADDRESS       192.168.0.2

9 Zeilen ausgewählt.

Hope that helps,
~Dietmar.

Mod_plsql for Apache2

2008-01-22T07:31:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Patrick for finding this really interesting post by Joel Kallman.

Finally, mod_plsql has been ported to Apache2. Up until now it was only available and supported for the Oracle Http Server based on Apache (1.3.x).

Using this configuration on a *nix (Linux / Unix) based machine would start a new database session even if the request would only serve a static image. Thus the connection pool of mod_plsql wasn't used at all. This is the first time where I have seen an advantage of the Windows architecture over Linux, bummer.

Thus on Linux you had to be careful planning for your environment if you expected a heavy load, here are some of the typical things to do optimize the performance.

Using Apache 2.0 and the new mod_plsql this should be improved now.

Greetinx,
~Dietmar.

Apex Meetup last Tuesday

2008-01-20T11:40:00.000+01:00

Last week, we had the first Apex meetup in the Cologne area in Germany. We started off slow with a small group of five people :) . From left to right you see Uwe Mahlmann, Denes Kubicek, Jens Gauger and Erich Heinemann.

We hope to establish this exchange of ideas on a monthly basis. Let's see, how it works out. On the next picture you can see me (Dietmar Aust) on the right, too.

We were talking about the different projects and the different ways, in which we use Apex in our projects.

Jens also mentioned that there definitely is a need to show off more customer references on how Apex is used in the *real world*. If somebody researches different tools for their company, customer references and actual samples / screenshots / screencasts build credibility. David Peake recently blogged about large applications built with Apex. This will be definitely a valuable addition to the already existing resources on OTN, especially the community and partners page.

Another bigger topic was the generation of Excel and PDF reports, this area is still not perfectly solved using Apex out of the box. BI-publisher is very expensive and the other solutions are just too rudimentary.

It was a really nice place in Siegburg. I guess I will going there more frequently. Nice atmosphere and good food and drinks.

Hope to see you on the next Apex meetup. I will post the anncouncement here and on my website.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Apex Stammtisch am 15.1.2008

2008-01-10T02:31:00.000+01:00

Am kommenden Dienstag, dem 15.01.2008, findet in Siegburg (in der Nähe von Köln) der erste Apex Stammtisch statt!

Denes Kubicek und Dietmar Aust sind auf jeden Fall dabei. Wir freuen uns auf ein lockeres Kennenlernen bei einem Bier und evtl. leckerem Flammkuchen.

Vielleicht bis nächste Woche!
~Dietmar.

New website released based on Apex and XE

2007-12-26T14:43:00.000+01:00

A few days ago, I have relaunched my company website at www.opal-consulting.de . This is a major redesign regarding the layout and the underlying technology.

How else could I possibly build my own website if not using Oracle Application Express and Oracle XE? I guess it has come out pretty well and it looks nice.

For now it is only in German, some English pages might follow in the future.
Here are some screenshots of my site:

I think it is sometimes necessary to showcase some really nice looking app in order to get a customer to "buy into" the underlying technology. In the end, this is all what the end-user "sees".

We (as developers) all know that Apex is "just" another framework with a rendering engine like so many others written in Java, C##, Perl, PHP, ... , you name it.

You can easily change the complete layout and/or integrate any 3rd party javascript library or other extension like all the other web frameworks out there. It is really versatile and extensible.
It is just that so many people *only* think of the standard sample application and the little tiny apps they do in the workshops. They think you are completely tied to this look and feel. But you aren't!

Hopefully, the look and feel of my site will make some people think differently about Apex!!!

I hope you like it :), comments are welcome!

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Apex: Advanced class in Germany announced

2007-12-20T14:38:00.000+01:00

The following post is in German, since it is targeted towards the German speaking community in Europe.

Wir freuen uns, folgende Oracle Application Express (APEX) Schulung für Fortgeschrittene bekanntgeben zu können:

Oracle APEX: Fortgeschrittene Techniken aus der Praxis

Nutzen Sie das Wissen und die Erfahrung von

Patrick Wolf, langjähriger Oracle Veteran und Senior Solution Architect bei einer Wiener IT Firma, wurde erst kürzlich vom Oracle Magazin zum „Oracle APEX Developer of the year 2007“ ausgezeichnet. Er ist weiterhin ein Oracle ACE und Betreiber des bekannten Blogs Inside Oracle APEX

Dietmar Aust, erfahrener Oracle Consultant mit Spezialisierung auf Oracle Apex, aktiv in den OTN Foren zu Apex und Oracle XE, mit Präsentationen auf den letzten DOAG Veranstaltungen,

Denes Kubicek, langjährige Projekterfahrung in den Bereichen Oracle und ApEx mit multisite Applikationen und sehr bekannt im Oracle APEX OTN Forum für seine Beispielapplikation und

, um fortgeschrittene Techniken und Best Practice Vorgehensweisen aus vielen erfolgreichen Apex Projekten zu lernen.

Nutzen Sie diese Möglichkeit, Ihre eigenen Anforderungen mit diesen Experten zu diskutieren.

Wir freuen uns auf Sie !!!

Weitere Details zum Kurs sowie die Anmeldung finden Sie hier.

~Dietmar.

Apex Roundtable Talk with Mike Hichwa

2007-09-20T22:30:00.000+02:00

Last Tuesday I have met Michael Hichwa at the Apex Roundtable Talk in Stuttgart. He is a great guy who truly loves this product. I am really happy to have chosen Application Express as my primary focus.

Denes Kubicek, Patrick Wolf und Carsten Czarski joined in on the discussion, amongst other Oracle customers that use Application Express a lot.

Mike gave an interesting presentation on the upcoming features. You can see the presentation here. He was also very interested in the projects we did and the enhancements we would like to see.

Lots of interesting stuff will be coming, it is really exciting. The 3.1 release is expected in November, the 4.0 release some time in the first quarter of 2008.

What I am really looking forward is the gradual publishing of an official API for Apex. Then we will be able to programmatically create applications, pages, regions, basically everything. This is a major step forward. It does already work now but is not supported.

Also the Apex team will make the Application Builder more extensible. They will start with custom item types in 4.0. Learning from this they will add more possibilities to add custom region types and wizards in subsequent releases.

He was also demonstrating some of the new features of 4.0, especially the new query report region, which uses AJAX a lot. There is a video done by Carl Backstrom available which shows some of this functionality.

So, lots of great stuff is coming ahead.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Small tool to escape HTML text for postings

2007-03-22T22:18:00.000+01:00

Hi guys, when I post answers in the forum, I often have to copy / paste HTML sequences, which will have to be escaped, else they mess up the posting itself.

For example, you cannot use

<a href="">link</a>

directly in a posting, you would have to escape it first to:

&lt;a href="">link&lt;/a>.

This is accomplished by replacing the opening bracket < with the html escape sequence <

You can find the tool here: http://apex.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=daust_demos:tools_escape_text

I use it quite often.

Enjoy,
~Dietmar.

More photos from Lavinia

2007-03-21T23:33:00.000+01:00

Well, the proud daddy has to show off some more pictures from his beloved daughter, Lavina Alessia Marie :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13993868@N00/sets/72157600007585103/detail/

She is already 7 months old and a real joy for us.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Apex: Nested reports

2007-03-21T23:02:00.000+01:00

Have you ever wondered how to display additional detail records together with the master records in a single report?

For example, in a recent project I had to display a list of orders. Together with the order details (who, when) I had to display the order items in the same row.

The result should look like this:

How can this be done?

The "trick" is to create a stored function which generates the HTML for the detail records so that they can be displayed with the master records.

Here is a step by step example based on the tables EMP and DEPT, what else ;).

1. Create the package and stored function to generate the html for all employees in a specific department:


CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE emp_pck
AS
/******************************************************************************
 NAME:       EMP_PCK
 PURPOSE:

 REVISIONS:
 Ver        Date        Author           Description
 ---------  ----------  ---------------  ------------------------------------
 1.0        16.03.2007             1. Created this package.
******************************************************************************/
 FUNCTION get_emps_inline_f (p_deptno NUMBER)
    RETURN VARCHAR2;
END emp_pck;
/


CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY emp_pck
AS
 FUNCTION get_emps_inline_f (p_deptno NUMBER)
    RETURN VARCHAR2
 IS
    l_str   VARCHAR2 (32767);
    l_cnt   NUMBER           := 0;
 BEGIN
    l_str    := '<table class="inlineTable">';
    l_str    :=
          l_str
       || '<tr><th>No.</th><th>Name</th><th>Job</th><th>Salary</th></tr>';

    FOR cur IN (SELECT   empno, ename, job, sal
                    FROM emp
                   WHERE deptno = p_deptno
                ORDER BY ename)
    LOOP
       l_str    := l_str || '<tr>';
       l_str    :=
             l_str
          || '<td>'
          || cur.empno
          || '</td><td>'
          || cur.ename
          || '</td><td>'
          || cur.job
          || '</td><td>'
          || cur.sal
          || '</td>';
       l_str    := l_str || '</tr>';
       l_cnt    := l_cnt + 1;
    END LOOP;

    l_str    := l_str || '</table>';

    IF l_cnt = 0
    THEN
       RETURN '';
    ELSE
       RETURN l_str;
    END IF;
 END;
END emp_pck;
/

2. Create the styles in the page header, in order to format the inline table:

<style type="text/css">
<!--
.inlineTable{border:1px solid #cfe0f1;border-collapse:collapse;width:100%;}
.inlineTable th{color:#336699;border:1px solid #cfe0f1;padding:2px;}
.inlineTable td{border:1px solid #cfe0f1;border-left:none;border-top:none;padding:2px;}
-->
</style>

3. Create the query in a report region

SELECT dept.*, emp_pck.get_emps_inline_f (deptno) employees
FROM dept

Here you can see the final result:

The forum thread can be found here and the online demo is located here.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Apex 3.0 has been released!

2007-03-21T01:54:00.001+01:00

It is already a few days ago, but Apex 3.0 has been released, on the 16th of March.

The quality is once again impressive, especially with regard to the upgrade from an existing 2.2.1 version. The whole process took only roughly 40 minutes, including the configuration. Very slick!

Here is a list of the new features.

Especially the new PDF printing facility. Unfortunately, in order to use the interesting PDF capabilities like Report Queries to create more complex layouts, you would need a full license for the BI publisher. This is a bummer.

Using FOP or other open frameworks it seems like it will only be possible to use the data from the current region, but not from other items in session state.

I will try to cook something up using Jasper Reports, I have already built a secured gateway to calling a complex Jasper Report that runs in a Tomcat.

Perhaps I can make use of the XML that is generated by Apex. The first impression is good.

I will keep you posted.

Regards,

~Dietmar.

Apex Evangelists goes live!

2007-03-14T21:11:00.001+01:00

Great news! Today the website of the Apex Evangelists has been launched.

The company was founded by Dimitri Gielis und John Scott. Their endavour is supported by other members like Patrick Wolf and Denes Kubicek and myself, all of us are well known in the Apex community.

The idea behind Apex Evangelists is that we will use our knowledge and experience of Application Express to provide a range of services, some of which are listed here -

* Application Website Development (plus of course hosting)
* Training Coaching (onsite and in our European Training Days)
* Application and Database Migrations
* Support Services

Our primary goal is to be able to provide these services to the European market and to generally evangelise (hence the name!) about how beneficial using APEX can be to European companies.

Interesting times ahead :).

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Symbolic and hard links on Windows

2007-03-11T12:57:00.001+01:00

This post is not directly related to Oracle, but it often bothered me, that you cannot create hard links and symbolic links on the windows platform. For example, you could move log files or data files to a different disk or even network drive and the application would not be able to notice it.

At least this is what I believed so far ;).

There is an excellent article explaining the way, the folder links work and how to create hard and symlinks on windows.

Symbolic links were introduced in Windows 2000, more specifically with NTFS 5.0. They are called "junction points".

In this article there are different tools mentioned, I have chosen the command line tool Junction by Mark Russovich, there is more information here.

Using junction.exe, creating a symlink is really easy:


C:\TEMP\links
 Datenträger in Laufwerk C: ist VAIO
 Volumeseriennummer: 54A5-8EF0

 Verzeichnis von C:\TEMP\links

11.03.2007  12:42              .
11.03.2007  12:42              ..
01.11.2006  13:06           158.520 junction.exe
               1 Datei(en)        158.520 Bytes
               2 Verzeichnis(se),  7.896.629.248 Bytes frei

C:\TEMP\links

Junction v1.04 - Windows junction creator and reparse point viewer
Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Mark Russinovich
Systems Internals - http://www.sysinternals.com

The first usage is for displaying reparse point information, and the
second usage is for creating or deleting a NTFS junction point:

usage: junction [-s] [-q]  or directory
       -q     Don't print error messages (quiet)

       -s     Recurse subdirectories

usage: junction [-d]  directory [ target
       -d     Delete the specified junction
       example: junction d:\link c:\winnt


C:\TEMP\links link2 c:\temp\link2

Junction v1.04 - Windows junction creator and reparse point viewer
Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Mark Russinovich
Systems Internals - http://www.sysinternals.com

Created: C:\TEMP\links\link2
Targetted at: c:\temp\link2

C:\TEMP\links
 Datenträger in Laufwerk C: ist VAIO
 Volumeseriennummer: 54A5-8EF0

 Verzeichnis von C:\TEMP\links

11.03.2007  12:47              .
11.03.2007  12:47              ..
01.11.2006  13:06           158.520 junction.exe
11.03.2007  12:47       link2
               1 Datei(en)        158.520 Bytes
               3 Verzeichnis(se),  7.896.629.248 Bytes frei

C:\TEMP\links link2
 Datenträger in Laufwerk C: ist VAIO
 Volumeseriennummer: 54A5-8EF0

 Verzeichnis von C:\TEMP\links\link2

11.03.2007  12:47              .
11.03.2007  12:47              ..
09.03.2007  20:54                49 debug.txt
               1 Datei(en)             49 Bytes
               2 Verzeichnis(se),  7.896.629.248 Bytes frei

C:\TEMP\links

!!! CAUTION !!!

There is a tricky thing to be aware of. On *nix (Linux, Unix, etc.) systems, when you delete a symlink, only the link is gone, but not not the files / directories the link points to.

Under Windows, these junction points work differently. If you use the Windows Explorer to delete the link, all files and subdirectories of the linked folder are gone, too. But only at the time, you empty the recycle bin. So be aware of that behaviour.

Always make sure, that you use the tool again, to remove the junction point, then it works fine.


C:\TEMP\links -d link2

Junction v1.04 - Windows junction creator and reparse point viewer
Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Mark Russinovich
Systems Internals - http://www.sysinternals.com

Deleted link2.

C:\TEMP\links c:\temp\link2
 Datenträger in Laufwerk C: ist VAIO
 Volumeseriennummer: 54A5-8EF0

 Verzeichnis von c:\temp\link2

11.03.2007  12:47              .
11.03.2007  12:47              ..
09.03.2007  20:54                49 debug.txt
               1 Datei(en)             49 Bytes
               2 Verzeichnis(se),  7.897.178.112 Bytes frei

If you use the functionality carefully, it is a really good thing.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Apex Community Page updated

2007-03-10T20:16:00.001+01:00

Last Wednesday, the community page on Application Express was updated.

You can find there links to

* APEX Community
* Special Interest Groups
* Consulting Companies
* Hosting Companies
* BLOGs
* Commmunity How-Tos and Articles

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Denes Kubicek - ApEx Demo

2007-03-10T20:07:00.001+01:00

Many of us are already familiar with the excellent work of Denes Kubicek in the Apex forum. Especially his API to the cool xml charts ( XML/SWF Charts).

You can find his demo applications here.
The xml charts API can be found here.

Enjoy,
~Dietmar.

Oracle: Changing the value for SYSDATE

2007-01-26T21:53:00.000+01:00

In many applications you work with time sensitive data, e.g. a table of products that have valid_from and valid_to dates.

You might want to display the currently valid products at some point and thus compare the current date (SYSDATE) to the valid_from and valid_to date values.

Or you calculate some values based on the value of SYSDATE.

These parts of your application are difficult to test. Altering the system clock is generally not a good idea!!!

So, how can you do this? Usually you have to modify the test data or change the code for testing purposes. But this is cumbersome and you usually can only test parts of the program.

I have come across this post recently how to set a specific fixed return value when you call SYSDATE.

It is very simple, you can set any date as the current date for SYSDATE:

ALTER SYSTEM SET fixed_date = '2003-01-01-10:00:00';
can be reset with a simple
ALTER SYSTEM SET fixed_date = NONE;

Consider the following example:


HR@o102> conn hr/hr
Connected.
HR@o102> select to_char(sysdate, 'dd.mm.yyyy hh24:mi:ss') now from dual;

NOW                                                                       
-------------------                                                       
26.01.2007 22:18:56                                                       

HR@o102> create table products(id number, product varchar2(50), valid_from date, valid_to date);

Table created.

HR@o102> insert into products(id,product,valid_from,valid_to)
2  values (1, 'product1', to_date('01.01.2006','dd.mm.yyyy') , to_date('25.12.2007','dd.mm.yyyy'));

1 row created.

HR@o102> insert into products(id,product,valid_from,valid_to)
2  values (2, 'product2', to_date('01.01.2006','dd.mm.yyyy') , to_date('25.01.2007','dd.mm.yyyy'));

1 row created.

HR@o102> insert into products(id,product,valid_from,valid_to)
2  values (3, 'product3_new', to_date('31.01.2007','dd.mm.yyyy') , to_date('31.12.2007','dd.mm.yyyy'));

1 row created.

HR@o102> commit;

Commit complete.

HR@o102> create or replace view products_current_v as
2  select * from products where trunc(sysdate) between valid_from and valid_to;

View created.

HR@o102> select id, product from products_current_v;

   ID PRODUCT                                                        
---------- --------------------------------------------------             
    1 product1                                                       

HR@o102> conn / as sysdba
Connected.
SYS@o102> alter system set fixed_date='2006-12-31-10:00:00';

System altered.

SYS@o102> conn / as sysdba
Connected.
SYS@o102> select to_char(sysdate, 'dd.mm.yyyy hh24:mi:ss') now from dual;

NOW                                                                       
-------------------                                                       
31.12.2006 10:00:00                                                       

SYS@o102> select id, product from hr.products_current_v;

   ID PRODUCT                                                        
---------- --------------------------------------------------             
    1 product1                                                       
    2 product2                                                       

SYS@o102> conn / as sysdba
Connected.
SYS@o102> alter system set fixed_date='2007-02-01-10:00:00';

System altered.

SYS@o102> conn hr/hr
Connected.
HR@o102> select to_char(sysdate, 'dd.mm.yyyy hh24:mi:ss') now from dual;

NOW                                                                       
-------------------                                                       
01.02.2007 10:00:00                                                       

HR@o102> select id, product from products_current_v;

   ID PRODUCT                                                        
---------- --------------------------------------------------             
    1 product1                                                       
    3 product3_new                                                   

HR@o102> conn / as sysdba
Connected.
SYS@o102> alter system set fixed_date=none;

System altered.

SYS@o102> select to_char(sysdate, 'dd.mm.yyyy hh24:mi:ss') now from dual;

NOW                                                                       
-------------------                                                       
26.01.2007 22:18:56

Update 22.03.2007

There is an important thing to note!!! In Oracle 9.2.x there is a bug regarding the setting of fixed_date. Once you restart the instance, you will run into an oracle error: ORA-00065: initialization of FIXED_DATE failed

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET fixed_date = '2007-04-01-10:00:00';
System altered.

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET fixed_date = NONE;
System altered.

SQL> shutdown immediate;
Database closed.
Database dismounted.
ORACLE instance shut down.
SQL> startup
ORA-00065: initialization of FIXED_DATE failed
SQL>

Once you hit this error, you will need to recover using the following approach:

SQL> create pfile from spfile;
File created.

A new pfile was created in the $ORACLE_HOME/dbs directory, in my case:
/opt/oracle/product/9205/dbs/inito920.ora

Edit the file and delete the line *.fixed_date='NONE'

Then restart the database:

SQL> startup pfile=/opt/oracle/product/9205/dbs/inito920.ora
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area  571545196 bytes
Fixed Size                   452204 bytes
Variable Size             402653184 bytes
Database Buffers          167772160 bytes
Redo Buffers                 667648 bytes
Database mounted.
Database opened.

SQL> create spfile from pfile;
File created.

Then restart the database to have it started using the spfile.

SQL> shutdown immediate;
Database closed.
Database dismounted.
ORACLE instance shut down.
SQL> startup
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area  571545196 bytes
Fixed Size                   452204 bytes
Variable Size             402653184 bytes
Database Buffers          167772160 bytes
Redo Buffers                 667648 bytes
Database mounted.
Database opened.
SQL>

Now do it again, this time the proper way:


SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET fixed_date = '2007-04-01-10:00:00';

System altered.

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET fixed_date = NONE;

System altered.

SQL> alter system reset FIXED_DATE scope=spfile sid='*';

System altered.

SQL> shutdown immediate;
Database closed.
Database dismounted.
ORACLE instance shut down.
SQL> startup
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area  571545196 bytes
Fixed Size                   452204 bytes
Variable Size             402653184 bytes
Database Buffers          167772160 bytes
Redo Buffers                 667648 bytes
Database mounted.
Database opened.
SQL>

Regards,
~Dietmar.

XE: ODBC connection to a remote XE server

2007-01-16T20:17:00.000+01:00

How do you set up an ODBC connection to a XE instance on a remote server?

The basic steps are:
* Download and install the XE client on your Windows machine
* Create an ODBC DSN entry
* Create a new MS Access MDB and link two tables from XE (using the sample user HR)

First, you download the XE Client software from the Oracle Technet: http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html

Double-click on the downloaded file to install it:

During the installation choose to install the client software into a directory of your choice and finish the installation.

After that you can configure the ODBC entry. Goto Start > Control Panel > Administration > ODBC DatasourcesOn the tab System-DSN add another data source:

Choose Oracle in XEClient:

Enter the details for the connection to the remote machine, in my case the remote machine is daust3.opal-consulting.de

Data Source Name: choose an arbitrary name
Description: choose an arbitrary description
TNS Service Name: host:port/SID
User ID: Oracle user to connect to

The service name is critical here, the hostname is the name of the remote machine but it can also be an ip-address. The port is the port on which the Oracle listener is operating, usually 1521. The SID is fixed, it is called XE.

Then test the connection by entering the password for the user HR. The result has to be "Connection successful".

After that start MS Access (in my case I used MS Access 2000) and create a link to the tables stored in XE. You can do this either by clicking on New > Link table

or by right clicking in the table pane and selecting Link Tables ...

then choose ODBC Databases from the bottom of the list:

Choose the computer data source XE, which we just configured:

then enter the password for the user HR. You can also just overwrite the User Name with a different user you want to connect to:

then select the relevant tables by holding down the control-key and click on the table names. Then hit OK.

Voila! The tables are linked and you can start using them:

Just be aware of firewalls!!! If you cannot connect to the remote machine the reason can be that port 1521 is blocked by your firewall!

Update: 18.01.2007

Storing the password in the DSN entry

You can also store the password together with the username in the DSN entry. This way the login prompt won't show when you link tables in MS Access. This might be useful in certain situations.
Just use the username/password in the User ID field when configuring the DSN entry.
For example you want to connect as the oracle user HR with password hrpwd. Then enter HR/hrpwd as the User ID instead of HR.

Thanks to Jer for this tip ( post in the XE forum ) .

Update: 18.01.2007

Using tnsnames.ora with XE client

In the DSN entry you can specify the connection information to the XE server instance using the easy connect syntax, just as shown above.

But you can also use the traditional resolution via the tnsnames.ora file. This adds another layer of abstraction so that you can access the tnsnames entry in you VBA code and not hardcode the server, port and SID information into your code.

To accomplish this, the following steps are necessary:

First, you have to add the variable TNS_ADMIN to your Oracle configuration in the registry.
Start regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\KEY_XEClient.

Then add a new string called TNS_ADMIN. Set the value to the directory where you want to store the tnsnames.ora file (you can also reference a directory of another Oracle install where a valid file is located).

Then create (or copy) the file tnsnames.ora and enter the following content:

XE =
  (DESCRIPTION =
    (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = DAUST3.opal-consulting.de)(PORT = 1521))
    (CONNECT_DATA =
      (SERVER = DEDICATED)
      (SERVICE_NAME = XE)
    )
  )

Then you can reconfigure your DSN entry and replace daust3.opal-consulting.de:1521/XE with XE.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Apex: Database authentication - an alternative solution

2006-09-15T00:24:00.000+02:00

Using native Oracle accounts for an Apex application has been a long requested feature.

Up until version 2.0 of Oracle Application Express (aka HTML DB) your choice of using authentication schemes (out of the box) were:

- Show Built-In Login Page and Use Open Door Credentials
- Show Login Page and Use HTML DB Account Credentials
- Show Login Page and Use LDAP Directory Credentials
- No Authentication (using DAD)
- Oracle Application Server Single Sign-On (HTML DB Engine as Partner App)
- Oracle Application Server Single Sign-On (My Application as Partner App)

With the release of Oracle Express Edition you could also use existing database accounts for authentication purposes out of the box, but this would only work with Oracle Express Edition.

In this release the developers of the database implemented an internal password validation check which is used to provide the functionality. The code for Oracle XE is based on the code release of Oracle 10gR2 (10.2.0.1).

Unfortunately this functionality was not available for Apex applications running version 2.0.

With the release of Apex 2.2 you can now also use the database authentication scheme out of the box. Unfortunately this has some limitations / drawbacks:

If you install Apex 2.2 into an Oracle version 10.2.0.3 and above, it will use the native password validation function and everything will be fine.

If you install Apex 2.2 instead into an Oracle version below 10.2.0.3, it will provide the same functionality but use a different approach. They store the current password, change the password on the fly, compare the password and reset the password afterwards if they were not equal (alter user identified by values [old_password_hash]): http://forums.oracle.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=869036#869036

This can cause problems (i.e. ORA-28007: the password cannot be reused) in the case you use password policies in your Oracle database (http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?forumID=137&threadID=422914)

In a recent project we have come up with a different solution to this problem. Many thanks to Ulrich Kämmerer (http://www.creon-it.de/) for figuring this out with me.

We used a jdbc thin connection to validate the password from whithin the database using java stored procedures.

Here is the solution (you can download all the required files at the end of this post):

We assume the following values for this sample, please change accordingly to match your system:
- Apex application schema: APEX_TEST
- Password for this schema: apex_test
- Listener port for this Oracle instance: 1521
- Tnsnames entry for the instance: o920
- Oracle SID for the instance: o920

1) Create the java class PasswordValidator:


import java.sql.*;
import oracle.jdbc.*;

public class PasswordValidator 
{
  public PasswordValidator()
  {
  }

  public static int isValidPassword(String pServerName, String pListenerPort, String pSID, String pUserName, String pPassword) throws SQLException
  {
    boolean bIsValid = false;
    
    try{
      DriverManager.registerDriver(new OracleDriver());
      Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:oracle:thin:@" + pServerName + ":" + pListenerPort + ":" + pSID, pUserName, pPassword);
      bIsValid = true;
      
    } catch (SQLException e)
    {
      //e.printStackTrace();
      //System.out.println("ErrorCode=" + e.getErrorCode());
      
      if (e.getErrorCode() == 1017)
      {
        // ORA-01017: invalid username/password
        bIsValid = false;
      } else {
        //result = e.getMessage();
        // re-raise exception
        throw(e);
      }
    }
    
    return bIsValid == true ? 1 : 0;
  }
}

2) Compile the java class

3) Load the java class into the database:


loadjava -user APEX_TEST/apex_test@o920 PasswordValidator.class

4) Grant the proper rights using the SYS account:


begin
  dbms_java.grant_permission('APEX_TEST','SYS:java.net.SocketPermission',  'localhost:1521', 'connect,resolve' );
end;
/

5) Modify the package variables to match your settings:


   c_server_name     CONSTANT VARCHAR2 (50) := 'localhost';
   c_listener_port   CONSTANT VARCHAR2 (50) := '1521';
   c_sid             CONSTANT VARCHAR2 (50) := 'o920';

6) Install the package in your Apex schema (e.g. APEX_TEST):


CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE apex_sec_pck IS
/******************************************************************************
   NAME:       APEX_SEC_PCK
   PURPOSE:    Security Package for database authentication
               (using jdbc thin connections)
               
      
   REVISIONS:
   Ver        Date        Author            Description
   ---------  ----------  ---------------   -----------------------------------
   1.0        14.06.2006  D. Aust           Initiale Erstellung

******************************************************************************/

/**************************************************************************
  Constants and Types
**************************************************************************/

  /*======================================================
    FUNCTION is_valid_password_fc
 
 Tests, wether this username/password is a valid combination
 for this instance.
 
    Parameter : p_username
 Parameter : p_password
    Return    : boolean
 Exception : 
  =======================================================*/
   FUNCTION is_valid_password_fc (p_username IN VARCHAR2, p_password IN VARCHAR2)
      RETURN boolean;
   
   
END;
/

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY apex_sec_pck IS
   c_server_name     CONSTANT VARCHAR2 (50) := 'localhost';
   c_listener_port   CONSTANT VARCHAR2 (50) := '1521';
   c_sid             CONSTANT VARCHAR2 (50) := 'o920';

   
   FUNCTION is_valid_password_java_wrp_fc (p_server_name IN VARCHAR2, p_listener_port IN VARCHAR2, p_sid IN VARCHAR2, p_username IN VARCHAR2, p_password IN VARCHAR2)
      RETURN NUMBER AS
      LANGUAGE JAVA
      NAME 'PasswordValidator.isValidPassword(java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String, java.lang.String) return int';
         
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   --
   --
   --
   FUNCTION is_valid_password_fc (p_username IN VARCHAR2, p_password IN VARCHAR2)
      RETURN BOOLEAN IS
      l_user     VARCHAR2 (30);
      l_retval   NUMBER;
   BEGIN
      l_retval := is_valid_password_java_wrp_fc (p_server_name => c_server_name, p_listener_port => c_listener_port, p_sid => c_sid, p_username => p_username, p_password => p_password);

      IF l_retval = 1 THEN
         RETURN TRUE;
      ELSE
         RETURN FALSE;
      END IF;
   EXCEPTION
      WHEN OTHERS THEN
         DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (SQLERRM);
         RETURN FALSE;
   END;

END;
/

7) Now test your password validation function in sql/plus:


SET serveroutput on

BEGIN
   DBMS_OUTPUT.put ('Password test 1 (correct password): ');

   IF apex_sec_pck.is_valid_password_fc ('apex_test', 'apex_test')
   THEN
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('password is valid');
   ELSE
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('password is *not* valid');
   END IF;

   DBMS_OUTPUT.put ('Password test 2 (incorrect password): ');

   IF apex_sec_pck.is_valid_password_fc ('apex_test', 'incorrect_pwd')
   THEN
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('password is valid');
   ELSE
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('password is *not* valid');
   END IF;
END;
/

8) Create a new authentication scheme in Apex:

The only three relevant entries are (leave everything else empty / use defaults):

a) Invalid session target : Page in this application => 101

b) Credentials Verification Method: Use my custom function to authenticate
=> return apex_sec_pck.is_valid_password_fc

c) Logout url: wwv_flow_custom_auth_std.logout?p_this_flow=&APP_ID.&p_next_flow_page_sess=&APP_ID.:1

You can download all source files, the compiled java class and a sample application (f118.sql) using this authentication scheme here: http://www.opal-consulting.de/downloads/db_authentication_jdbc.zip

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Back online ...

2006-09-14T22:54:00.000+02:00

Hi guys,

I have been offline for quite a while being busy with my Apex projects at my clients ;). Apex is really taking off!!!

And just recently my little and beautiful daughter Lavinia Alessia Marie was born!!!

The first album on Flickr

The album as a slide show

So this has kept me busy lately. We are really happy and things are going well.

Happy posting again.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Apex: New Frappr Group for Apex Services

2006-04-11T23:29:00.000+02:00

Most people in the Forum love Oracle Application Express, but we feel it needs some more visibility.

I have created a new group on Frappr for Oracle Application Express Services :
http://www.frappr.com/oracleapplicationexpressservices

There you can find services related to Oracle Application Express: consultants, developers, hosting services and products based on Apex.

Please add yourself to the map if you provide any services related to Oracle Application Express.
There is also another listing of services on the Wiki page for Application Express.

We also feel that we might need some more prebuilt applications like in the Apex Studio on OTN.

I don't know yet what we (the community) will come up with, but it will be interesting. So stay tuned ...

~Dietmar.

XE: Calling stored procedures

2006-04-09T20:17:00.000+02:00

Using the Oracle web toolkit and the PL/SQL gateway (either via mod_plsql or DBMS_EPG) you can call stored procedures via http(s) to generate output for the browser (HTML, XML, basically any content for any mime-type).

The syntax for this is

http://<server>:<port>/<dad>/<schema>.<procedure>

For example, if you wanted to call the procedure called HELLO_WORLD in the schema HR, you would use the following url (in a default Oracle XE installation on port 8080): http://127.0.0.1:8080/apex/hr.hello_world .

This doesn't work with Oracle XE (production) any longer but will result in an 403 Forbidden error:

In Oracle XE (production) you will have to "allow" a stored procedure to
be called through the embedded plsql gateway (DBMS_EPG) due to a stricter security
control.

This is documented in the Oracle XE documentation here.

The behaviour is controlled via the DAD-attribute request-validation-function ,
which maps to the stored function wwv_flow_epg_include_modules.authorize in
the schema FLOWS_020100. You can modify the existing
stored function called wwv_flow_epg_include_mod_local to
add more procedures to the list of modules that are allowed to be called.

Below you will see a full example of allowing the procedure hello_world to
be called:

1) create procedure hello_world

conn HR/<pwd>@xe

create or replace procedure hello_world as
begin
  htp.p('hello world');
end;
/

grant execute on hello_world to anonymous
/

2) connect as SYSTEM and modify the function in the schema FLOWS_020100

conn SYSTEM/<pwd>@xe

alter session set current_schema=FLOWS_020100;

CREATE OR REPLACE function wwv_flow_epg_include_mod_local(
    procedure_name in varchar2)
return boolean
is
begin
    --
    -- Administrator note: the procedure_name input parameter may be in the format:
    --
    --    procedure
    --    schema.procedure
    --    package.procedure
    --    schema.package.procedure
    --
    -- If the expected input parameter is a procedure name only, the IN list code shown below
    -- can be modified to itemize the expected procedure names. Otherwise you must parse the
    -- procedure_name parameter and replace the simple code below with code that will evaluate
    -- all of the cases listed above.
    --
    if upper(procedure_name) in (
          'HR.HELLO_WORLD') then
        return TRUE;
    else
        return FALSE;
    end if;
end wwv_flow_epg_include_mod_local;
/

3) Now you can call it via http://127.0.0.1:8080/apex/hr.hello_world

// Make sure you compare the procedure name in upper case, i.e HR.HELLO_WORLD and not hr.hello_world!!!

Update: 22.05.2006

How to modify the stored function directly using SQL developer

You can also use the free Oracle tool SQL Developer to modify the stored function directly.

The stored function is located in the schema FLOWS_020100. This account is locked by default, thus you would have to unlock the account first in order to use the user FLOWS_020100 to modify the stored function.

Another option is to use a DBA account like SYSTEM to modify the stored function. The following step by step instructions explain how to do it.

1) After starting SQL Developer, right-click with the mouse on the connection and select "New Database Connection" .

2) Fill in the following details to establish a connection to your local XE instance, then click on "connect"

3) Next, click on XE, then Other Users.

4) Click on FLOWS_020100, then Functions, after that on WWV_FLOW_EPG_INCLUDE_MOD_LOCAL:

5) Click on "Edit" in the right panel, where you can see the function you want to edit

6) Edit the function

7) Compile the function

That's it. You don't have to restart the database, it works right away.

~Dietmar.

Apex: Workaround for SVG chart hyperlink bug with Firefox 1.5

2006-03-29T21:30:00.000+02:00

I have come across a nasty problem using SVG charts in Apex.

In order to create drill-down charts with Oracle Application Express you provide a SQL statement that will return the data to display a SVG chart's series. This SQL statement must be provided using this syntax:

SELECT link, label, value FROM...

For example:

select
'f?p=141:6:'||:app_session||'::::F141_P6_EMPNO:'||empno link,
ename,
sal
from emp

A simple chart might look like this:

When clicking on the link you would want to see a detail page in
the same browser window:

While this works well in Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 1.0.7 and Mozilla, what you see in Firefox 1.5 is:

This is due to a bug in Firefox 1.5 ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=300868 )
. Unfortunately does Firefox ignore the target="_top" attribute for the xlink tag:

<a xlink:href="newdoc.html" target="_top">

The suggested workaround is :

xlink:href="javascript:window.top.location.href='newdoc.html'"

Using this fix to implement a workaround for Apex means changing a query like this:

SELECT *
FROM (SELECT   'f?p=&APP_ID.:14:' || :app_session || '::::P14_EMPNO:' || empno || ':' LINK
      , ename label, sal VALUE
   FROM HTMLDB_SAMPLES.EMP
  WHERE sal IS NOT NULL
ORDER BY ename)

to a query like this:

SELECT *
FROM (SELECT   'javascript:window.top.location.href=''f?p=&APP_ID.:14:' || :app_session
        || '::::P14_EMPNO:' || empno || ':''' LINK
      , ename label, sal VALUE
   FROM HTMLDB_SAMPLES.EMP
  WHERE sal IS NOT NULL
ORDER BY ename)

This works fine for all of the above mentioned browsers.

~Dietmar.

XE: Oracle Home Selector

2006-03-19T22:27:00.000+01:00

When you installed Oracle on a Windows machine (previous to version 10g), it would also install the Oracle Home Selector:

This way you could switch between different Oracle versions installed on the same machine. It would set the environment appropriately (including the modification of the PATH variable).

With the release of Oracle 10g (and above) the Home Selector has been moved into the Oracle Universal Installer, but it has become a quite "hidden" feature.

Oracle Express Edition (XE) doesn't come with a Home Selector at all.

There is a freeware tool called "Oracle Locator Express" from DbMotiveTools, which does an excellent job here.

Once you download and double-click on it, you will find an additional icon in your taskbar.
Right-click on it and it will show you all Oracle_Homes it can find on this machine. On my machine it recognized all homes ranging from version 8.0 up until 10g.

It certainly found XE and the XE client as well.
Cool stuff!

~Dietmar

Where are the /images of Application Express in OracleXE?

2006-03-16T01:21:00.000+01:00

In a standalone Apex installation, the required images, css and javascript files are accessible via the virtual path /i.

This virtual path mapping looks something like this in your marvel.conf (or dads.conf) file:

Alias /i/ /opt/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/htmldb/images/

But where are the images in OracleXE?

When you look at http://127.0.0.1:8080/i you will see that the images are available, but they cannot be found in the filesystem.

In OracleXE these resources are stored directly in the database, using the Oracle XMLDB feature.
You can access the resources and modify them directly by using the WebDAV feature of the XMLDB.

(1) With Internet Explorer, just go to File > Open > http://127.0.0.1:8080/i (check "open as webfolder"):

(2) You will be prompted for user credentials, enter username and password for the database user SYSTEM:
(3) After that you can access the files via WebDAV directly, using Drag&Drop:

Update (19.03.2006)

If you don't have an Internet Explorer for connecting via WebDAV available, you can also use another WebDAV client like sitecopy or cadaver ( http://www.webdav.org/projects/ ).

Or you can simply use a plain FTP client to modify the files:

(1) Enable FTP access to the database:

www:oraclexe[XE]> sqlplus system@xe
SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.1.0 - on Sun Mar 19 22:20:36 2006
Copyright (c) 1982, 2005, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Enter password:

Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0

SQL> exec dbms_xdb.setftpport('2100');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> alter system register;

System altered.

SQL> select dbms_xdb.getftpport as "FTP-Port" from dual;

FTP-Port
----------
    2100

SQL> exit

(2) Modify the files via FTP:

www:oraclexe[XE]> ftp localhost 2100
Connected to localhost.localdomain.
220- www
Unauthorised use of this FTP server is prohibited and may 
be subject to civil and criminal prosecution.
220 www FTP Server (Oracle XML DB/Oracle Database) ready.
Name (localhost:oraclexe): system
331 pass required for SYSTEM
Password:
230 SYSTEM logged in
Remote system type is Unix.
ftp> cd i/themes
250 CWD Command successful
ftp> dir
200 PORT Command successful
150 ASCII Data Connection
-rw-r--r--   1 SYS      oracle      3075 OCT 10 03:41 generic_list.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 SYS      oracle      1307 OCT 10 03:41 generic_nochild.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 SYS      oracle      1463 OCT 10 03:41 generic_open.gif
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 opal
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 otn
-rw-r--r--   1 SYS      oracle       216 OCT 10 03:41 rollup_minus_dgray.gif
-rw-r--r--   1 SYS      oracle       215 OCT 10 03:41 rollup_plus_dgray.gif
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_1
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_10
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_11
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_12
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_2
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_3
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_4
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_5
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_6
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_7
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_8
drw-r--r--   2 SYS      oracle         0 OCT 10 03:41 theme_9
226 ASCII Transfer Complete
ftp> bye
221 QUIT Goodbye.
www:oraclexe[XE]>

(3) Disable FTP access for security:


www:oraclexe[XE]> sqlplus system@xe

SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.1.0 - on Sun Mar 19 22:24:28 2006

Copyright (c) 1982, 2005, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Enter password:

Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0

SQL> exec dbms_xdb.setftpport('0');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> alter system register;

System altered.

SQL> exit

~Dietmar.

XE: Oracle XE is in production now!

2006-02-28T10:58:00.000+01:00

Oracle Express Edition has been released on 02/24/2006 and is in production now.

You can download the software here: http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html

The downloads come in two flavours: A Western European Edition and an Universal Edition

Oracle Database 10g Express Western European Edition - Single-byte LATIN1 database for Western European language storage, with the Database Homepage user interface in English only. The character set is WE8MSWIN1252.

Oracle Database 10g Express Universal Edition - Multi-byte Unicode database for all language deployment, with the Database Homepage user interface available in the following languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. The character set is AL32UTF8.

There is also a separate download of a

Oracle Database 10g Express Client
Client software to be installed on client systems for remotely accessing Oracle Database 10g Express Edition.

But you can just as well connect to Oracle Express Edition just like any other Oracle Database using SQL*Net.

The downloads are available for both Windows and Linux x86 platforms. The software is not installed using the standard Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) but uses the native installers, Microsoft Installer packages and RPMs for Linux. Specific Debian packages will be released shortly.

~Dietmar.

XE: Changing the default http port

2006-01-25T11:42:00.000+01:00

Oracle XE uses the embedded http listener that comes with the XML DB (XDB) to serve http requests. The default port for HTTP access is 8080.

It also supports the WebDAV protocol just as well as FTP.

You can determine the current configuration using the following commands when you connect to XE as the oracle user SYSTEM (or any other DBA):


C:\WINDOWS\system32>sqlplus system@xe

SQL*Plus: Release 10.1.0.2.0 - Production on Mi Jan 25 11:44:33 2006

Copyright (c) 1982, 2004, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Enter password:

Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Beta

SQL> -- get current status
SQL> select dbms_xdb.gethttpport as "HTTP-Port"
            , dbms_xdb.getftpport as "FTP-Port" from dual;

HTTP-Port   FTP-Port
---------- ----------
     8080          0

You can change the http port and the ftp port to whatever you like (keep in mind that you need special privileges for ports < 1024 on Unix/Linux systems).


SQL> -- set http port and ftp port
SQL> begin
 2    dbms_xdb.sethttpport('80');
 3    dbms_xdb.setftpport('2100');
 4  end;
 5  /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select dbms_xdb.gethttpport as "HTTP-Port"
            , dbms_xdb.getftpport as "FTP-Port" from dual;

HTTP-Port   FTP-Port
---------- ----------
       80       2100

If you only want to use the database without allowing access via http or ftp then you can disable both:


SQL> -- disable http and ftp access
SQL> begin
 2    dbms_xdb.sethttpport('0');
 3    dbms_xdb.setftpport('0');
 4  end;
 5  /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> -- get current status
SQL> select dbms_xdb.gethttpport as "HTTP-Port"
            , dbms_xdb.getftpport as "FTP-Port" from dual;

HTTP-Port   FTP-Port
---------- ----------
        0          0

~Dietmar

XE: Where in the World is Oracle XE Being Used?

2006-01-25T08:53:00.000+01:00

Mark Townsend from Oracle XE Marketing invites us to join the Oracle XE group on http://www.frappr.com:

Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (Oracle XE) is being used all over the world. If you are using Oracle XE why not add yourself to the map - see the OracleXE group on frapper - http://www.frappr.com/oraclexe.
You can also find other people in your area using Oracle XE as well.

Simply add yourself to the map (no registration required) and join the community!

You can also check out the Frappr group for HTML DB users ( http://www.frappr.com/htmldbusers ) and see who is using it in the world.

~Dietmar.

2006-01-10T20:07:00.000+01:00

I have started this BLOG to spread the word on the really cool web development framework HTML DB and the free Oracle database Oracle Express Edition (XE) .

Enjoy the ride!

~Dietmar.