One thing developers like to do is keep local backup copies of their development work. Sometimes they'll copy files and suffix them with .bak or they'll store them in a version control repository. With APEX you don't copy a file to back it up. Either you have to copy the application (within the workspace) or export the application and save it locally. For one-off backups this can be ok, but as you develop with more and more applications in larger environments it can be tedious work and will slow down your development time.
Thankfully APEX has a tool, that comes as part of the install zip file, which allows for command line exports. It's one of the lesser known tools that is extremely useful.
Below is a simplified copy of a batch file which will automatically backup all the APEX applications on a given database using the APEX backup tool. I usually recommend that organizations run such a script on their development environments to store hourly backups of their development environments. The example is a very simple example which should be modified to tag the backup with the date/time or zip and store the backups in version control. I've also appended an extra script which lists all the APEX applications, workspaces, and IDs and stores this information as part of the backup in a .html file.
To use the script, create the files listed below in the same directory and make the appropriate modifications in apex_backup.bat
apex_backup.bat
Backups all the applications in the database
REM ***** START MODIFICATIONS ****** REM ***** Parameters ****** REM Oracle information REM To find SID name: select * from v$instance; set oracleSID=XE set oracleSystemPass=oracle set oraclePort=1526 set oracleHost=localhost REM Root directory where oracle\apex\*class files are stored REM These is a sub directory from the extracted APEX install zip file set apexExportJavaDir=C:\temp\apex_4.1.1_en\apex\utilities REM File that contains names of applications and workspaces set apexHtmlFileName=apex_info.html REM Directory where backups will be stored set backupLocation=C:\temp\apexbackup REM ****** PATHS ********* REM Note: You may not need to explicitly define these as they may already be set in OS. set ORACLE_HOME=C:\oracle\product\11.2.0\client_1 set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;.\;%ORACLE_HOME%\jdbc\lib\ojdbc5.jar;%apexExportJavaDir% set PATH=%PATH%;.\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin REM ***** END MODIFICATIONS ****** REM ****** Other ********* set startRunLocation=%CD% REM ****** Directory Setup ****** REM Create temp bacpkup location mkdir %backupLocation% REM ****** APEX BACKUP ******* REM Go to backup location to run backups in cd %backupLocation% REM Export all applications java oracle.apex.APEXExport -db %oracleHost%:%oraclePort%:%oracleSID% -user system -password %oracleSystemPass% -instance REM Export all Workspaces java oracle.apex.APEXExport -db %oracleHost%:%oraclePort%:%oracleSID% -user system -password %oracleSystemPass% -expWorkspace REM Generate listing of Workspaces and Applications sqlplus system/%oracleSystemPass%@%oracleHost%:%oraclePort%/%oracleSID% @%startRunLocation%\apex_backup_info.sql %apexHtmlFileName% REM Back to start location cd %startRunLocation%apex_backup_info.sql
Stores all the application names, workspaces, and IDs
-- Parameters -- 1 = File Name -- http://forums.devshed.com/oracle-development-96/sql-plus-column-width-format-185085.html -- http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a90842/ch13.htm#1012748 SET NUMFORMAT 9999999999999999999999999999999999999 SET MARKUP HTML ON SPOOL ON HEAD "APEX Export " SET ECHO OFF SPOOL &1 -- Current Date select to_char(sysdate, 'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS') current_date from dual; -- Applications SELECT application_id, workspace, application_name, owner FROM apex_applications WHERE workspace != 'INTERNAL' ORDER BY application_id; -- Workspaces SELECT workspace_id, workspace FROM apex_workspaces WHERE workspace != 'INTERNAL' ORDER BY workspace_id; SPOOL OFF SET MARKUP HTML OFF SET ECHO ON EXIT;
