17 thoughts on “human readable URLs in Oracle APEX – Part 3”

1. Thanks for sharing this info in such comprehensive posts. I’ve used Apache rewrite rules, but this looks way better.

2. As you stated: it only works for public applications and that is a big limitation, I think.
   Most applications will have some authentication and authorisation.

   How would you solve this matter?
   Is this something the APEX team should try to find a solutions for?

   I hope you can persuade the APEX team to have a look at it, because it is something a lot of developers would like to use.

3. I also stated, that it most likely isn’t important to have nice URLs for internal applications.

   Saying that, I can live with this workaround for the time being, but would prefer an integrated solution delivered by APEX itself.

4. The real good thing about the nice URLs is that it doesn’t include the application ID.
   Users can bookmark the URL of their internal application(s).
   This means you always have to keep the same application ID.
   When the application is installed under a new application ID, all users have to change their bookmarks.

   It could be avoided by making a portal.
   But still linking between two applications also means that the calling application has to be changed when the called application gets a new application ID.

   The elegance of your solution is that the used application ID’s got be stored in a table.
   That means you only have to maintain it on one place. Much more robust.

5. Hi Peter,

   I m using your given method to get a nicer url, i have implemented the steps you mentioned above.

   1. Setting all application pages authentication to public.
   2. Setting Cookie Path attributes to /pls/apex/ as mentioned above.
   3. Further i have replaced all targets to URL according to my page name along with cookie path.

   I m getting the following error while navigating to the page.

   Http Status 404- Not Found.
   type Status report
   messageNot Found
   descriptionThe requested resource is not available.
   GlassFish Server Open Source Edition 4.0

   Please help to solve the problem.

   Regards
   Faraz Saleem

6. HI Peter,

   I m using Oracle Glassfish server as application server , i want to set the following parameter for it

   PlsqlPathAlias ragtest
   PlsqlPathAliasProcedure rag_url_mapping

   I m not finding the dads.conf in it.
   Please help.

   Regards

7. That’s ok, it means your server is set up correctly.

   The dads.conf exists only for mod_plsql which requires the Oracle Application Server.

   I assume you are using the APEX Listener (Oracle REST Data Services) ? In that case you want to use the RESTful Webservices method.

8. Hi Peter,

   I have set the following cookie path parameter.

   Cookie Settings:
   My Actual Application URL: MyServer:Port/ords/
   Cookie Path: /ords/
   is it correct?.

   In the second part of your post you created a Procedure URL_DEMO with path parameter, i m not finding this procedure any where in the post for use, i mean where are we using the procedure URL_DEMO.

   Secondly, I m not getting what is hrurl in the link /pls/apex/hrurl/orders mentioned for target, and where are we using the web service in this example.

   Regards

9. Hey Peter,

   Below are the steps, i m using for Nicer URL example.

   1. Created a procedure URL_DEMO.

   create or replace PROCEDURE URL_DEMO( p_path IN VARCHAR2)
   AS
   v_path APEX_APPLICATION_GLOBAL.VC_ARR2;
   BEGIN
   v_path := APEX_UTIL.STRING_TO_TABLE(p_path||’/’, ‘/’);

   IF UPPER(v_path(1)) = ‘HOME’
   THEN
   F(P=>’162:1:0′);
   ELSIF UPPER(v_path(1)) = ‘COMPANY’
   THEN
   F(P=>’162:2:0::YES’);
   ELSE
   HTP.P(‘URL_DEMO called!’);
   HTP.P(‘…path = ‘||p_path);
   END IF;
   END;

   2. Created a RESTFul Web service , with the given settings.

   RESTful Service Module
   Name: HRUrl
   Pagination Size:25
   Status:Published

   Resource Template
   RESTful Service Module: HRUrl
   URI Template:{path}
   Priority:0
   Entity Tag:Secure Hash

   Resource Handler
   URI Template: {path}
   Method :GET
   Source Type:PL/SQL
   Source: BEGIN url_demo(:path); END;

   3. Setting Authentication Scheme and Cookie Path.
   Scheme Type: Application Express Accounts

   Session Cookie Attributes
   Cookie Path:/ords/

   4. Created two public pages.
   1.HOME
   2.CUSTOMER

   5. Created a List for Navigation between pages.
   List Entries:
   1. Home
   Target
   Target type:URL
   URL Target:/ords/HRUrl/HOME/
   2. Company
   Target
   Target type:URL
   URL Target:/ords/HRUrl/COMPANY/

   6.Created a zero page to display the Navigation List in it.

   Still getting the error 404- Not Found with the given URL http://host:port/ords/HOME/.

   Can you tell me which is the step i m missing.
   looking for your response.

   Regards

10. Do you know if there are any updates to these recommendations for version 5.0 now that it is out?

11. Jeff, there are no changes in this area for APEX 5.

12. Hi Peter,

    Thanks for this really helpful article. I followed the steps and it works perfectly for me. I am using ORDS in standalone mode and I am trying to achieve a more nice URL without the “/web/” part. What I did, I set up an NGINX web server in front of the ORDS. The NGINX listens on port 80 and proxyes everything to the ORDS listening on 8080.
    Everything works fine except submitting a page (wwv_flow.accept).
    You can check it here:
    Original using your solution: http://87.229.23.171:8080/web/tsmt/home
    using nginx proxy: http://87.229.23.171
    In the left menu “Állapotfelmérés” (http://87.229.23.171/allapotfelmeres) has a submit button, but it redirects to a wrong URL. It works fine if you try it using directly the ORDS (http://87.229.23.171:8080/web/tsmt/allapotfelmeres).
    My nginx config is this:
    server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    location /i/ {
    root /u01/app/oracle/product/ords/images/;
    rewrite ^/i/(.*)$ /$1 break;
    break;
    }

    location / {
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_buffering off;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
    rewrite ^/$ /home redirect;
    rewrite ^/(.*)$ /web/tsmt/$1 break;
    }
    }
    Please advise. Thank you in advance.
    Regards

13. Hi Balazs,

    sorry, I don’t know about Nginx config, but I would be interested to hear your solution once you found the problem.

14. Hi Peter,

    Thank you so much for the article, it’s a life saver. I have one question, how were you able to change the domain name of the http://www.click-click.at/ application?

15. Chad,

    Not sure I understand your question? Why changing the domain name? It runs on click-click.at, there is no change.

16. I meant how were you able to change it from the standard ‘apex.oracle.com’ to http://www.click-click.at/.

17. Peter,

    Does this approach not change with the 5.0 page (and security) setting “Rejoin Sessions” ?

    The reason I ask is that I’m building Apex 5.0 application that shows a user’s FlickR photos and videos.

    This requires setting up Oauth, which involves going to the Flickr authorize page where the user agrees to allow the Apex application to access private photos.

    I read your excellent tutorial but found that this “rejoin sessions” setting allows me to effectively rejoin the same Apex session which makes the initial Oauth token request; I’m passing to FlickR a callback URL which is actually a RESTful service designed much like you describe – the only difference is that the plsql rejoins the original session without having to set session_id to “0”. The page I’m displaying from the plsql requires authentication but is rejoined without the user having to login again.

    Many thanks again for excellent ideas in this tutorial. Was very helpful.
    Mark.