Clear page cache - All except specific items

Question

APEX 4.2.1
On a page with dozens of editable page items, when branching back to the same page on-submit, is there a way to clear cache for all items except a few (key) items? The branch attributes (via the f?p= syntax) support clearing cache for the entire page and setting specific item/value pairs but no support for exclusions.
Any ideas? Thanks

Answer 1

I wrote a utility procedure to do this a couple of years ago. Something like this (reusing a slightly modified version of the Shuttle item - Saving changes):
create or replace procedure clear_page_cache_except (
    p_page          in number
  , p_exclude_items in varchar2
  , p_separator     in varchar2 := ',')
is
begin
  for item in (
    select
        i.item_name
    from
        apex_application_page_items i
    where
        i.application_id = nv('app_id')
    and i.page_id = clear_page_cache_except.p_page
    minus
    select
        x.column_value
    from
        table(
          string_to_coll(
              upper(clear_page_cache_except.p_exclude_items)
            , clear_page_cache_except.p_separator)) x)
  loop
    apex_util.set_session_state(item.item_name, null);
  end loop;
end clear_page_cache_except;However IIRC we mainly used this from packages: it's not very branch-to-page friendly. Possibly use a Branch to PL/SQL Procedure with a procedure that calls <tt>clear_page_cache_except</tt> then redirects to the page?