Oracle Application Express is truly a database application. The IDE, the menus, and all of the screens you see in APEX are written in PL/SQL. The meta DATA for all of those screens, reports, and menus are stored in relational tables within the database. When you point your BROWSER at the APEX URL, the Oracle HTTP LISTENER (Apache +mod_plsql or the PL/SQL gateway, depending on database version) receives that call and uses PL/SQL and the meta data stored in database tables to paint the welcome screen.

When you log into APEX you are using an actual database user ID. This user ID is associated with a role (or roles) within the database and these roles determine what access you will have. If you are an administrator, you have access to create users and workspaces. As a developer, you have access to create new applications. If you are configured as an end-user, you will be able to RUN one or more applications. Oracle Application Express is integrated with the Oracle Database as no environment is. If you need to extend the basic functionality of APEX, there is no need to learn additional languages or link in additional libraries. On the rare occasions you need to extend functionality, you’ll either use SQL for data access or PL/SQL when procedural code is required.

Oracle Application Express is truly a database application. The IDE, the menus, and all of the screens you see in APEX are written in PL/SQL. The meta data for all of those screens, reports, and menus are stored in relational tables within the database. When you point your browser at the APEX URL, the Oracle HTTP listener (Apache +mod_plsql or the PL/SQL gateway, depending on database version) receives that call and uses PL/SQL and the meta data stored in database tables to paint the welcome screen.

When you log into APEX you are using an actual database user ID. This user ID is associated with a role (or roles) within the database and these roles determine what access you will have. If you are an administrator, you have access to create users and workspaces. As a developer, you have access to create new applications. If you are configured as an end-user, you will be able to run one or more applications. Oracle Application Express is integrated with the Oracle Database as no environment is. If you need to extend the basic functionality of APEX, there is no need to learn additional languages or link in additional libraries. On the rare occasions you need to extend functionality, you’ll either use SQL for data access or PL/SQL when procedural code is required.