"To Define a Document Attribute (Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide)

Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide
Release 2.6.3
Part Number B10284-02


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To Define a Document Attribute

1. Enter a string that identifies the document in the default value field of the Attribute property page.

You can identify the following types of document for a document attribute:

A PL/SQL document

A PL/SQL CLOB document

A PL/SQL BLOB document

2. A PL/SQL document represents data from the database as a character string, generated from a PL/SQL procedure. Specify the default value of a PL/SQL document as

 plsql:<procedure>/<document_identifier>

Replace <procedure> with the PL/SQL package and procedure name, separated by a period. Replace <document_identifier> with the PL/SQL argument string that you want to pass directly to the procedure. The argument string should identify the document.

Note: The PL/SQL procedure must follow a standard API format. See: Standard APIs for "PL/SQL" Documents.

For example, the following string represents the PL/SQL document, po_req:2034, generated by the procedure po_wf.show_req.

 plsql:po_wf.show_req/po_req:2034

Note: The maximum length of the data that a PL/SQL document can contain is 32 kilobytes. If you expect your document to exceed 32 Kb, you should use a PL/SQL CLOB document to hold the data instead.

A PL/SQL document can either be displayed in the message body of a notification or included as an attachment to the notification.

3. A PL/SQL CLOB document represents data from the database as a character large object (CLOB), generated from a PL/SQL procedure. Specify the default value of a PL/SQL CLOB document as

 plsqlclob:<procedure>/<document_identifier>

Note: The PL/SQL procedure must follow a standard API format. See: Standard APIs for "PL/SQL" and "PL/SQL CLOB" Documents.

For example, the following string represents the PL/SQL CLOB document, po_req:2036, generated by the procedure po_wf.show_req_clob.

 plsqlclob:po_wf.show_req_clob/po_req:2036

A PL/SQL CLOB document that contains text or HTML can either be displayed in the message body of a notification or included as an attachment to the notification.

PL/SQL CLOB documents do not support further substitution of message attribute tokens. The text or HTML contents of the CLOB are printed in a message body just as they are generated by the PL/SQL procedure.

Do not use tokens within the CLOB.

Ensure that the PL/SQL procedure performs any formatting you require.

A PL/SQL CLOB document that you include as an attachment to a notification can also contain a PDF or RTF document or, if your database version is Oracle9i Database or higher, other binary data encoded to base64. You should first store the document in the database as a binary large object (BLOB) and then convert the document into a CLOB as part of the PL/SQL procedure you use to produce the CLOB. See: Standard APIs for "PL/SQL" Documents.

You can use the UTL_RAW.Cast_To_VARCHAR2 function to convert PDF or RTF data from the BLOB into VARCHAR2 data that you write to a CLOB. If your database version is Oracle9i Database or higher, you can optionally use the WF_MAIL_UTIL.EncodeBLOB procedure to encode the binary data to base64. See: UTL_RAW, Oracle Supplied PL/SQL Packages and Types Reference and EncodeBLOB, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

Note: Oracle8i Database does not support base64 encoding, so if you are using Oracle8i Database, the WF_MAIL_UTIL.EncodeBLOB procedure is not available, and you cannot store binary data other than PDF or RTF documents in a PL/SQL CLOB document. This feature is available only if you are using Oracle9i Database and higher.

However, both Oracle8i Database and Oracle9i Database and higher support the UTL_RAW.Cast_To_VARCHAR2 function, so you can store PDF and RTF documents in an attached PL/SQL CLOB document on any of these database versions.

4. A PL/SQL BLOB document represents data from the database as a binary large object (BLOB), generated from a PL/SQL procedure. Specify the default value of a PL/SQL BLOB document as

 plsqlblob:<procedure>/<document_identifier>

Note: The PL/SQL procedure must follow a standard API format. See: Standard APIs for "PL/SQL" Documents.

For example, the following string represents the PL/SQL BLOB document, po_req:2038, generated by the procedure po_wf.show_req_blob.

 plsqlblob:po_wf.show_req_blob/po_req:2038

PL/SQL BLOB documents do not support further substitution of message attribute tokens.

A PL/SQL BLOB document can contain an image or an application file stored as binary data, such as a PDF or RTF document or other types of files. You can include a PL/SQL BLOB document as an attachment to a notfication. However, this type of document cannot be displayed in the message body of a notification.

5. If you wish to generate the document identifier for a PL/SQL, PL/SQL CLOB, or PL/SQL BLOB document dynamically, you can token substitute the document identifier with other item type attributes. The item attribute names must be in uppercase and must be separated by a colon. See: To Token Substitute an Attribute.

For example:

 plsql:po_wf.show_req/&ITEM_ATTR1:&ITEM_ATTR2

Note: If you are defining a message attribute of type Document, you can also include a special token in your argument string called &#NID which Oracle Workflow substitutes with the notification ID of the runtime notification.

6. Choose OK when you are done.


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