How to save pdf in APEX 3.0

Question

is there a way to save the pdf output into APEX database in ver 3

Answer 1

Hi,
based on Marc's suggestion to use UTL_HTTP to get the PDF I played around a little bit. But I didn't try to directly communicate with the report server which would require to send and XML stream which I would have to generate, I took a shortcut and thought why shouldn't APEX do the hard work :-)
1) Create a table with a BLOG, eg.
CREATE TABLE TESTPDF (PDF_REPORT BLOB);2) Set the "Static ID" region property to a value.
3) Load the below procedure into your application schema
3) Call the procedure getPDF in one of your page processes.
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE getPDF
  ( pStaticRegionId IN VARCHAR2
IS
    vRegionId  APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_REGIONS.REGION_ID%TYPE;
    vReportURL VARCHAR2(255);
    vBlobRef   BLOB;
    vRequest   Utl_Http.req;
    vResponse  Utl_Http.resp;
    vData      RAW(32767);
BEGIN
    -- get internal region id of the report region
    SELECT REGION_ID
      INTO vRegionId
      FROM APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_REGIONS
     WHERE APPLICATION_ID = Apex_Application.g_flow_id
       AND PAGE_ID        = Apex_Application.g_step_id
       AND STATIC_ID      = pStaticRegionId
    -- build URL to call the report
    vReportURL := 'http://apex.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p='||
                  Apex_Application.g_flow_id      ||':'||
                  Apex_Application.g_step_id      ||':'||
                  Apex_Application.g_instance     ||':'||
                  'FLOW_XMLP_OUTPUT_R'||vRegionId||'_en';
    -- get the blob reference
    INSERT INTO TESTPDF
      ( PDF_REPORT
    VALUES
      ( Empty_Blob()
    RETURNING PDF_REPORT INTO vBlobRef;
    -- get the pdf file from APEX by simulating a report call from the browser
    vRequest := Utl_Http.begin_request(vReportUrl);
    Utl_Http.set_header(vRequest, 'User-Agent', 'Mozilla/4.0');
    vResponse := Utl_Http.get_response(vRequest);
    LOOP
        BEGIN
            -- read the next junk of binary data
            Utl_Http.read_raw(vResponse, vData);
            -- append it to our blob for the pdf file
            Dbms_Lob.writeAppend
              ( lob_loc => vBlobRef
              , amount  => Utl_Raw.length(vData)
              , buffer  => vData
        EXCEPTION WHEN Utl_Http.END_OF_BODY THEN
            EXIT; -- exit loop
        END;
    END LOOP;
    Utl_Http.end_response(vResponse);
end getPDF;Haven't really be able to test the code with a real APEX report, because apex.oracle.com doesn't allow to load a page which references utl_http and I don't have access to another APEX instance right now. But I have tested that the utl_http code and the storage into the blob works with some other URL.
So if anybody could try out...
BTW, the above code should only be used as an example. I would suggest to pass the BLOB reference as parameter to the procedure and not do the insert directly in the procedure. That way you can use it for several different applications/tables.
Patrick
My APEX Blog: http://inside-apex.blogspot.com
The ApexLib Framework: http://apexlib.sourceforge.net
The APEX Builder Plugin: http://sourceforge.net/projects/apexplugin/