Oracle APEX 20.1 was finally released on April 23rd 2020 !

As usual, once the download is available, I take a look at the View and API Layer, to see what’s changed there.

My personal highlights are the new views APEX_APPL_EMAIL_TEMPLATES and APEX_PATCHES. In the API department we finally got an APEX_IG package (Stefan has more details in his post) and new instance parameters for APEX_INSTANCE_ADMIN.
Small but beautiful: APEX_PAGE.get_url has been enhanced with p_plain_url to avoid getting a Javascript stub.

Below you can see what has been changed in APEX Views and APEX PL/SQL API’s from version 19.2 to 20.1.

Views

APEX_WORKSPACES
+ session_timeout_warn_seconds – The time in seconds before a session times out, to display a warning

APEX_APPLICATIONS
+ friendly_url – Determines whether URLs should be friendlier by using application and page alias
+ authorize_batch_job – Determines if the authorization schemes should be checked when running backround job (i.e subscription )
+ session_timeout_warn_seconds – The time in seconds before a session times out, to display a warning

APEX_APPLICATION_SUBSTITUTIONS
= rebuilt, now using UNPIVOT

APEX_APPL_PAGE_FACETS
+ lov_cascade_parent_facet – Identifies the cascading LOV parent facet
+ lov_cascade_parent_column – Identifies the cascading LOV parent column
+ lov_cascade_parent_required – Yes or No, identifies if the parent facet has to contain a value to display the LOV
+ sort_by_top_counts – Identifies whether the facet values with the highest count are displayed first
+ depending_on_id – Identifies a facet that is used to check if the current facet gets displayed
+ depending_on_condition_type – Identifies a condition that must be met in order for this facet to be displayed
+ depending_on_expression – Identifies the facet depending on condition

APEX_APPLICATION_RPT_QRY_STMTS – Identifies inidividual SQL statements, which are part of a report quert
+ report_query_id – ID of the report query

APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_IR
+ download_auth_scheme – Authorization scheme to restrict who can download
+ download_auth_scheme_id – Identifies the internal code of DOWNLOAD_AUTH_SCHEME

APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_IR_RPT
+ app_tenant_id – For non-default report settings, application tenant ID associated with this report

APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_IR_SUB – Identifies subscriptions scheduled in saved reports for an interactive report
+ session_id – The cloned session ID of the subscription to reference session state

APEX_APPL_PAGE_IGS
+ download_auth_scheme – Authorization scheme to restrict who can download
+ download_auth_scheme_id – Identifies the internal code of DOWNLOAD_AUTH_SCHEME

APEX_APPL_PAGE_IG_RPTS
+ app_tenant_id – For non-default report settings, application tenant ID associated with this report

new: APEX_APPL_EMAIL_TEMPLATES – Stores the meta data for the email templates of an application

APEX_USAGE_METRICS – Usage metrics for an instance
+ last_hr – Value for the last hour

new: APEX_PATCHES – Identifies Oracle Application Express patches installed on the instance for the current version

new: APEX_SCHEDULER_JOBS – APEX internal scheduler jobs, e.g. for the mail queue

API’s

APEX_APPLICATION

• g_friendly_url
• g_session_timeout_warning_sec
  o js_message
  <> p_app_id is now varchar2, instead of number

APEX_AUTHENTICATION

• persistent_cookies_enabled – Return whether persistent cookies are enabled on the instance. Instance administrators can control this value with the parameter WORKSPACE_NAME_USER_COOKIE
• callback, callback2
  • scope
  • realmID
• saml_callback
  • SAMLRequest – Request from the IP to APEX (e.g. logout)
  • saml_metadata – Emit the SAML metadata for the given application or for the APEX instance

APEX_DATA_PARSER

• parse, discover
  • p_xml_namespace – namespace information to parse XML responses

APEX_DEBUG

• enter
  • p_name14, p_value14

APEX_EXEC

• new subtype t_data_type
• type t_value
  • binary_number_value
• type t_column
  • bind_variable_name
  • is_binary_number
• new constants
  • c_search_contains_instr
  • c_search_contains_like
  • c_search_starts_with
  • c_search_ends_with
  • c_search_like
  • c_data_type_binary_number
• type t_filter
  • search_operator
• open_query_context
  • p_supports_binary_number
• new set_value for binary_double
• new get_binary_number
• new add_parameter for binary_double
• new get_parameter_binary_number
• add_filter
  • p_search_operator

new: APEX_IG – similar interfaces as APEX_IR

APEX_INSTANCE_ADMIN
new Instance Parameters

• CSV_DOWNLOAD_ESCAPE_FORMULAS
• CSV_DOWNLOAD_WITH_BOM_ENABLED
• IGNORED_FRIENDLY_URL_PARAMETERS
• MAX_APPLICATION_BACKUPS
• MAX_LOGIN_FAILURES
• SESSION_TIMEOUT_WARNING_SEC
• PASSWORD_NOT_LIKE_USERNAME
• PASSWORD_NO_LIKE_WORDS
• PASSWORD_NOT_LIKE_WS_NAME
• PASSWORD_ONE_ALPHA
• PASSWORD_ONE_LOWER_CASE
• PASSWORD_ONE_NUMERIC
• PASSWORD_ONE_PUNCTUATION
• PASSWORD_ONE_UPPER_CASE
• REQUIRE_OUT_HTTPS
• REQUIRE_OUT_LDAPS
• RESTRICT_DEV_HEADER
• SAMESITE_COOKIE
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_MIN_LENGTH
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_NEW_DIFFERS_BY
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_ONE_ALPHA
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_ONE_NUMERIC
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_ONE_PUNCTUATION
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_ONE_UPPER_CASE
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_ONE_LOWER_CASE
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_NOT_LIKE_USERNAME
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_NOT_LIKE_WS_NAME
• SERVICE_ADMIN_PASSWORD_NOT_LIKE_WORDS
• UPGRADE_DEFERRED
• WORKSPACE_NAME_USER_COOKIE

APEX_JSON

• initialize_clob_output
  • p_preserve
• get_clob_output
  • p_free

new: APEX_LOV – introduced in APEX 19.2 – no documentation, yet

APEX_PAGE

• get_url
  • p_x01
  • p_hash
  • p_triggering_element
  • p_plain_url – to omit unecessary JS code

APEX_PLUGIN

• type t_item
  • shared_lov_id

APEX_PLUGIN_UTIL

• type t_bind
  • name is now varchar2(128) instead of 30

APEX_REGION

• open_query_context
  • p_outer_sql
• new clear
• new reset

APEX_SESSION

• emit_timeouts
• set_tenant_id

new APEX_STRING_UTIL

APEX_THEME

• set_session_style_css
  • p_page_css_classes

APEX_UTIL

• host_url
  • new option APEX_PATH to include script name in url

APEX_WEB_SERVICE

• oauth_authenticate_credential – successor of deprecated oauth_authenticate
• oauth_authenticate – deprecated