Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 13-23.
APEX in SQL Developer
In SQL Developer, you can view object information and perform basic application-level tasks such as importing
and exporting an application, changing the application alias, and renaming an application.
Refactoring Support
APEX allows for anonymous blocks of PL/SQL. We strongly recommend that such blocks reference compiled code
(packages, functions, and procedures). Storing code in packages helps separate the business logic from the display
layer and may have some performance benefits.
In some cases, you may have written large blocks of code directly in the application. Eventually, you should move
these large blocks of code into compiled PL/SQL code. SQL Developer provides a tool that automatically generates a
PL/SQL package from the anonymous blocks of PL/SQL in APEX. You can then replace your large blocks of code with
references to this package. To generate the package, right-click the application in SQL Developer and select Refactor
(in Bulk), as shown in Figure
13-24
.
Figure 13-24.
Refactoring code
SQL Developer opens a new worksheet with the necessary code to compile. The new worksheet also provides
notes on what sections of your APEX applications to change and the code to replace them with. Similar to the APEX
Advisor, these are recommendations; you should follow your organization's development standards, and so on.
Summary
Many tools in APEX make your life as a developer easier. Take some time to get to know the tools and utilities
presented here, and you can undoubtedly speed up your ability to get things done. And although any PL/SQL GUI can
help you edit and manage database objects, it should be clear by now that Oracle's SQL Developer has special hooks
to make managing, developing, and debugging with APEX far more straightforward.
