Database Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Item values
: A list of APEX item values, separated by commas, that corres-
pond in order to the items specified in the list of item names
•
Printer Friendly
: A flag that determines whether the page is
rendered in Printer Friendly mode
It's easiest to understand the APEX URL syntax by looking at a few examples.
Table 6-1
shows several examples and explains them.
Table 6-1.
APEX URL Examples
Calls page 10 of the current
application using the cur-
rent session and clears the
session cache for page 10
f?p=&APP_ID.:10:&APP_SESSION.:::10
Calls page 5 of the current
application using the cur-
rent session, not in Debug
mode, setting the value of
P2_ID
to 1234
f?p=&APP_ID.:5:&APPSESSION.::NO::P2_ID:1234
Calls page 5 of the current
application using the cur-
rent session in Debug mode
f?p=&APP_ID.:5:&APP_SESSION.::YES
As you can see, the APEX URL not only supplies directions to the server, but is also
your key to what page is being requested, with what request, and with what values. So
how does this URL syntax tie in to your work on the Help Desk application?
APEX applications store all values in an APEX session, which is securely bound to
a specific user and user session. Values stored in this user session can easily be set or
read by a developer. Any item—application or page—can be easily referenced from
anywhere within your APEX application. Values can be referenced and passed to
APEX as part of the
p
parameter to control which APEX page is rendered and what
values are displayed on that page.
As the volume of data in your system grows, you need a quick way to sort through it
and control what data is passed to what page. You can add a page item and then use the
value of that item to filter the SQL statement for the report on page 200 of the applica-
tion. In fact, an item in APEX can be referenced in a SQL or PL/SQL region, as in the
predicate of a query, by using the bind variable syntax (
:P1_ITEM_NAME
) and as part
of the APEX URL.
Getting back to the wizard-generated Tickets report, you can apply what you just
learned about session state, APEX items, and the APEX URL to add a new item called
