Custom labels in application

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to solve out how to create dynamic labels. Imagine that you have a text component on the page and it's label is defined by value of "&G_ITEM1_LABEL.". Then I create application item G_ITEM1_LABEL and application proccess GET_PAGE_LABELS which can be simple SQL code like this:
SELECT text
INTO :G_ITEM1_LABEL
FROM page_labels
WHERE id = 'ITEM1_LABEL';
This is OK, but imagine that you need to create about 30 items per page, in 5 pages and they're different on every page. Of course I can just repeat the query above 100times, but this isn't very smart solution.
I wonder, if there exist some type of global array, which can be used in every page I need.
For example label for the first text item should be "&G_LABELS['ITEM1_LABEL']." And these array should be filled by some application process from the table "page_labels".
Do you know any ideas how to do that?
thanks in advance
Robert

Answer 1

Nothing about the items or labels are stored in cookies. The only thing in the cookie is some info to identify who you are and what apex session you are using. Don't even think about editing the wwv_flow... tables yourself. Think of them like Data Dictionary tables. Would you update a row in DBA_TAB_COLUMNS (please say "no")?
APEX was designed to work with items in 2 ways:
- Traditional, static items (Create an item in a region).
- Tabular Forms using the apex_application package. Search on this term, you'll find lots of examples
If what you want to do doesn't fit into one of these 2 categories, consider rethinking your design if you want to use APEX. Forcing a square peg into a round hole often more trouble than it's worth.
Tyler