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SQLcl : Deploying Oracle Application Express (APEX) Applications using the SQLcl implementation of Liquibase
This article demonstrates how to deploy Oracle Application Express (APEX) applications using the SQLcl implementation of Liquibase.
This is a rewrite of a Liquibase article, but using SQLcl instead of the regular Liquibase client.
- SQLcl (runOracleScript)
- Assumptions
- The Demo Files
- Create Privileged User
- Create a New APEX Workspace
- Create a New APEX Application
- Clean Up
Related articles.
- Liquibase : All Articles
- SQLCL and Liquibase : Deploying Oracle Application Express (APEX) Applications
- SQLcl : Automating Your SQL and PL/SQL Deployments using the SQLcl implementation of Liquibase
- SQLcl : Installation
SQLcl (runOracleScript)
Running a change log with the basic sqlFile
tag has many of the same limitations in both the SQLcl implementation of Liquibase and the default JDBC connector in the regular Liquibase client. It is fine for running simple SQL files, but it struggles with more complex files, especially those including SQL*Plus-specific settings and commands. This makes trying to load an Oracle APEX workspace or application export file impossible without a lot of editing. In the past your options were as follows.
- Export to a single file and manually edit it, removing SQL*Plus-specific commands and providing a valid split string between calls, which you would reference in the
endDelimiter
attribute of thesqlFile
tag. - Export to multiple files, and build a potentially complex change log to call all the resulting files in the correct sequence.
Both options were quite frankly annoying.
The runOracleScript
tag solves this buy running the named script using the SQLcl engine, which understands most of the SQL*Plus settings and commands. This allows you to deploy unmodified APEX workspace and application export files with just a few minor changes to the relevant change log.
This article provides a simple example of how you might approach that.
Assumptions
This article makes some assumptions about what you have available and your preexisting knowledge.
- You already have a basic understanding of Liquibase and specificlly the SQLcl implementation of it. If not, you would be better to start by reading this article.
- You have a basic understanding of APEX, and how to manually export/import applications.
- You have a functioning APEX installation to work with.
- You have a download of SQLcl 19.4 or above. You can see how to install it here.
- You have a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) suitable for running SQLcl.
- We are connecting to SQLcl using username/password credentials, but we could just as easily use a secure external password store.
- We will only use the
runOracleScript
tag for those with problematic scripts. If could be used as full replacement for thesqlFile
tag is you prefer.
The Demo Files
The demos will use the following files.
+--- normal | +--- changelogs | | +--- changelog_master_dev_ws.xml | | +--- changelog_setup_demo_app_sqlcl.xml | | +--- changelog_setup_tab1.xml | | +--- changelog_setup_tab2.xml | +--- scripts | | +--- demo_app_f101.sql | | +--- get_tab1_count.sql | | +--- tab1.sql | | +--- tab1_seq.sql | | +--- tab2.sql | | +--- tab2_seq.sql +--- privileged | +--- changelogs | | +--- changelog_create_dev_workspace_sqlcl.xml | | +--- changelog_create_dev_workspace_user.xml | | +--- changelog_master.xml | +--- scripts | | +--- create_apex_priv_user.sql | | +--- create_dev_workspace.sql | | +--- create_dev_workspace_user.sql | | +--- remove_apex_priv_user.sql | | +--- remove_dev_workspace.sql | | +--- remove_dev_workspace_user.sql
They are available from a GitHub repository (here).
The privileged and normal operations are kept in a single repository for this demonstration, but you may wish to split the privileged operations off into a separate repository, depending the the trust level in your organisation.
Create Privileged User
In any deployment process you will occasionally need to make changes that require elevated privileges. You can choose to leave these as manual operations, or you can automate them with Liquibase. In this example we want a user called APEX_PRIV_USER
to perform privileged actions and administer the APEX instance. You may prefer to split these roles into separate users.
The "create_apex_priv_user.sql" file contains the commands to create this privileged user. The addition of APEX_ADMINISTRATOR_ROLE
allows the user to administer the APEX instance. In this case we've included the DBA
role to allow other privileged actions, which is rather excessive. You need to grant the least privileges necessary for the user to perform the operations you need, which may vary on a project-by-project basis. Needless to say, this should really have a strong password and have a restricted audience.
create user apex_priv_user identified by apex_priv_user quota unlimited on users; grant dba, apex_administrator_role to apex_priv_user;
With this user in place, all the following actions can be performed using SQLcl.
Create a New APEX Workspace
We are going to split the creation of a new workspace into two parts.
We use the "create_dev_workspace_user.sql" script to create a new user for the workspace.
create user dev_ws identified by dev_ws quota unlimited on users; grant create session, create cluster, create dimension, create indextype, create job, create materialized view, create operator, create procedure, create sequence, create synonym, create table, create trigger, create type, create view to dev_ws;
The "changelog_create_dev_workspace_user.xml" change log for this action is shown below. It uses a standard sqlFile
tag to reference the script.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <databaseChangeLog xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-3.6.xsd"> <changeSet author="tim" id="create_dev_workspace_user"> <sqlFile dbms="oracle" endDelimiter=";" path="../scripts/create_dev_workspace_user.sql" relativeToChangelogFile="true" splitStatements="true" stripComments="false"/> </changeSet> </databaseChangeLog>
The "create_dev_workspace.sql" file contains an APEX workspace definition. This was manually created in an APEX environment, then exported so it could be replayed in other environments. The "changelog_create_dev_workspace_sqlcl.xml" change log for this action is shown below. It uses the runOracleScript
tag to reference the script, with the script name included as CDATA
under the source
tag. Notice also the "dbchangelog-ext" namespace for the Oracle extentions.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <databaseChangeLog xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:n0="http://www.oracle.com/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-3.6.xsd"> <changeSet author="tim" id="create_dev_workspace_v1" failOnError="true"> <n0:runOracleScript objectName="create_dev_workspace" ownerName="DEV_WS" sourceType="FILE"> <n0:source> <![CDATA[/git/oraclebase/liquibase_sqlcl_apex_demo/privileged/scripts/create_dev_workspace.sql]]> </n0:source> </n0:runOracleScript> </changeSet> </databaseChangeLog>
We add these two changesets to the "changelog_master.xml" file for the privileged user.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <databaseChangeLog xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-3.6.xsd"> <include file="./changelog_create_dev_workspace_user.xml" relativeToChangelogFile="true"/> <include file="./changelog_create_dev_workspace_sqlcl.xml" relativeToChangelogFile="true"/> </databaseChangeLog>
We connect to the APEX_PRIV_USER
user and issue the lb update
command relevant to your SQLcl version.
conn apex_priv_user/apex_priv_user@//localhost:1521/pdb1 Connected. SQL> -- >= 22.3 lb update -changelog-file /git/oraclebase/liquibase_sqlcl_apex_demo/privileged/changelogs/changelog_master.xml SQL> -- 20.2 - 22.2 lb update -changelog /git/oraclebase/liquibase_sqlcl_apex_demo/privileged/changelogs/changelog_master.xml SQL> -- < v20.2 lb update /git/oraclebase/liquibase_sqlcl_apex_demo/privileged/changelogs/changelog_master.xml SQL>
If you check your APEX instance, you will see the DEV_WS
workspace is now present. You can log into it with the "Dev1Workspace2!" password, then you'll be prompted to reset it.
Create a New APEX Application
With the APEX workspace in place, we can create some objects and an APEX application to reference those objects. Most of the SQL files for the supporting objects are straight from this article, so I won't waste time explaining them again. They create some tables that will be referenced by the APEX application. Instead we will focus on the APEX-specific piece.
The "demo_app_f101.sql" file contains a really basic APEX application called "Demo App", which we'll use to demonstrate the deployment process. The "changelog_setup_demo_app_sqlcl.xml" change log shows how to load this file. Similar to the workspace example, we use the runOracleScript
tag to reference the script, with the script name included as CDATA
under the source
tag.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <databaseChangeLog xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:n0="http://www.oracle.com/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-3.6.xsd"> <changeSet author="tim" id="demo_app_v1" runOnChange="true" failOnError="true"> <n0:runOracleScript objectName="demo_app" ownerName="DEV_WS" sourceType="FILE"> <n0:source> <![CDATA[/git/oraclebase/liquibase_sqlcl_apex_demo/normal/scripts/demo_app_f101.sql]]> </n0:source> </n0:runOracleScript> </changeSet> </databaseChangeLog>
We include this change log into the "changelog_master_dev_ws.xml" file, which is the master change log for this environment.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <databaseChangeLog xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-3.6.xsd"> <include file="./changelog_setup_tab1.xml" relativeToChangelogFile="true"/> <include file="./changelog_setup_tab2.xml" relativeToChangelogFile="true"/> <include file="./changelog_setup_demo_app_sqlcl.xml" relativeToChangelogFile="true"/> </databaseChangeLog>
We connect to the DEV_WS
user and issue the lb update
command relevant to your SQLcl version.
CONN dev_ws/dev_ws@//localhost:1521/pdb1 -- >= 22.3 lb update -changelog-file /git/oraclebase/liquibase_sqlcl_apex_demo/normal/changelogs/changelog_master_dev_ws.xml SQL> -- 20.2 - 22.2 lb update -changelog /git/oraclebase/liquibase_sqlcl_apex_demo/normal/changelogs/changelog_master_dev_ws.xml SQL> -- < v20.2 lb update /git/oraclebase/liquibase_sqlcl_apex_demo/normal/changelogs/changelog_master_dev_ws.xml SQL>
If you check your APEX instance, you will see the DEV_WS
workspace now includes an application called "Demo App".
Clean Up
The "remove_*.sql" files have been provided to allow you to clean up the demo. Collectively they perform the following commands.
-- Run as the APEX_PRIV_USER. begin apex_instance_admin.remove_workspace('DEV_WS', 'N', 'N'); end; / -- Run as another privileged user. drop user dev_ws cascade; drop user apex_priv_user cascade;
For more information see:
- Using Liquibase with SQLcl
- Execute Custom SQL with RunOracleScript
- Liquibase : All Articles
- SQLCL and Liquibase : Deploying Oracle Application Express (APEX) Applications
- SQLcl : Automating Your SQL and PL/SQL Deployments using the SQLcl implementation of Liquibase
- SQLcl : Installation
Hope this helps. Regards Tim...