Passing item to pl/sql to modify the query

Question

hi all,
i am new to apex and appreciate any help :)
what i am trying to do do is show point of interest on the map, and filter them :)
what i already have done:
i have a page.1 where is a list and when you click the link it sent you to page.2 with 3 items, "type" start date "end date"
type is well the type of point :)
start date and end date are today's dates that are pulled from db when clicked
when page.2 opens i can see the 3 items on the page
the page body loads a pl/sql procedure which:
pl/sql code on page.2
"begin item_locations; end;"
queries the database and returns the
"type" "lat,long" "date" "id"values from different tables
example;
id type lat,long date
coffe 2     40.386289,49.824348     5     07-OCT-12 10.37.54.000000 PM
tea 2     40.386289,49.824348     5     07-OCT-12 10.37.54.000000 PM
food 2     40.386289,49.824348     5     07-OCT-12 10.37.54.000000 PM
cars 1     40.386289,49.824348     5     07-OCT-12 10.37.54.000000 PM
bars 3      40.386289,49.824348     5     07-OCT-12 10.37.54.000000 PM
shops 6      40.386289,49.824348     5     07-OCT-12 10.37.54.000000 PM
then the procedure takes outputs as "htp.print" and creates a map and show ALL the points,
i want to do 2 things
1) i want to filter whats shown on the page by type and date when the page loads (assuming user coming from page.1 with the items full :) )
my idea is to add "where type=**type from page.2 item** and date **page item date1** between **page item date2**
2) add a button so and if i manually input/modifiy the page items on page2. them click the button will have new results :)
by setup:
win8 64 bit
oracle db expres
Application Express 4.0.2.00.09
thanks in advancce

Answer 1

Sounds like an interesting application!
The easiest way to do this would be to change your procedure item_locations to include the three parameters you want to use, so that your procedure looks like:
PROCEDURE item_locations
(p_type VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL
,p_start_date DATE DEFAULT NULL
,p_end_date DATE DEFAULT NULL)
IS ...
BEGIN
Select col1, col2, col3
from my_table
where type = NVL(p_type,type)
and my_date between NVL(p_start_date,my_date) and NVL(p_end_date,my_date)
htp.p(my_data)
END  item_locations;
etc
-- Note  - this is purely example code and not intended to compile as is. Just saying.Then in your apex page process, you simply call
BEGIN
item_locations (:P2_ITEM, :P2_START_DATE, :P2_END_DATE);
END;I hope this makes sense. It sounds like you're so new that you have not had the pleasure of doing the 2 Day Developer Guide. I would strongly recommend you do this if you are not familiar with Apex - it is a necessity.
Kind Regards, Pete