How to insert document into xmltype column through an http post request with perl

Question

Oracle 11.2.0.3
Windows server 2008r2
Apache tomcat 7.0
Oracle APEX 4.2.1
Oracle APEX Listener 2.0
I would like to insert a XML document into the database through an APEX restful web service. The POST into the web service in done with PERL. The following code will insert an empty record in a table with column of XMLType type.
Perl Code
use strict;
use warnings;
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP:Headers;
my $headers = HTTP::Headers->new();
my $url = "http://host:port:apex/<application_workspace>/<restfull service module>/<uri template>/
my $sendthis = ('<?xml version="1.0" enconding="utf-8"?>
<students>
<row>
       <name>Mark</name>
      <age>30</age>
</row>
<./students>';)
$headers -> header('Content-Type' => 'text/xml; charset=utf-8');
my $request = HTTP:Request->new('POST', $url, $headers, $sendthis);
$request-> protocol('HTTP/1.1');
my $browser = LWP::UserAgent->new();
my $response = $browser->request($request);
my $gotthis= $response->content();
my $the_file_data = $response->content();
APEX restful service
Method: POST
Source type: PL/SQL
MIME Types allowed: blank
require secure access: none
source:
{declare
doc varchar2(32000);
begin
insert into table <column name>
values(doc);
commit;
end;
Table code
{ create table <tablename>
(column name XMLType>);
The above code will insert an empty column into the table.
Any ideas why?

Answer 1

It's a really bad idea to assemble XML using strings and string concatenation in SQL or PL/SQL. First there is a 4K limit in SQL, and 32K limit in PL/SQL, which means you end up constructing the XML in chunks, adding uneccessary complications. 2nd you cannot confirm the XML is valid or well formed using external tools.
IMHO it makes much more sense to keep the XML content seperated from the SQL / PL/SQL code
When the XML can be stored a File System accessable from the database, The files can be loaded into the database using mechansims like BFILE.
In cases where the XML must be staged on a remote file system, the files can be loaded into the database using FTP or HTTP and in cases where this is not an option, SQLLDR.
-Mark