Creating a REST service is a fundamental skill for modern application development, enabling seamless communication between systems over the web. In Oracle APEX, building RESTful services allows you to expose database operations through standard HTTP methods, making your data accessible to external applications or integrating external data into your APEX apps. This blog will guide you through the essential steps to create a REST service, covering key concepts and practical implementation details to get your REST endpoints up and running efficiently.
Creating a REST service in Oracle APEX involves several steps that enable your database to interact with external applications via HTTP requests. REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style that uses standard HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE to perform CRUD operations on resources. In Oracle APEX, you can create RESTful services using Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS), which acts as a middle tier between the database and web clients.
To start, you first need to define a RESTful service module in ORDS. This module serves as a container for related REST endpoints. Within the module, you create RESTful templates, which define the URI patterns for your API. Each template can have multiple handlers that specify the HTTP methods supported (GET, POST, etc.) and the SQL or PL/SQL code that executes when those endpoints are called. For example, a GET handler can retrieve data from a table, while a POST handler can insert new records.
The process begins in Oracle APEX or directly in ORDS by navigating to the RESTful Services section. You create a new module and define its base path. Then, you add templates corresponding to specific resource paths and associate handlers with each template. When writing SQL or PL/SQL in handlers, you leverage bind variables and APEX collections to handle input parameters and request bodies.
Security is an important consideration; you can configure authentication and authorization schemes to protect your REST services. Oracle APEX supports OAuth2, Basic Authentication, and other methods to ensure that only authorized users or applications can access your APIs.
Once your REST service is created and published, it becomes accessible via URLs that external applications can call. You can test your REST endpoints using tools like Postman or curl to verify they behave as expected. By organizing your RESTful services into modules, templates, and handlers, Oracle APEX provides a flexible and powerful framework for creating APIs that integrate your database with other systems efficiently and securely.
Example
Step 1. Navigate to an existing REST Data Service and click on the “Manage Synchronization” link.
Step 2. Select the “New Table” option, provide a name for the table, and press “Save”
Step 3. Click on the “Create Table” in the “Table Status” region.
Step 4. Review the table in SQL workshop
Step 5. Select the type of “data load” that you want by selecting from the “Append/Merge/Replace” buttons
Step 6. Press the “Save and Run” button.
You should have the following results in your table.
