Results for “dbms_xmlgen”

AI-generated from documented ETRM metadata — verify critical details on the linked pages.

Overview

SYS.DBMS_XMLGEN is an Oracle-supplied PL/SQL package body that generates canonical XML (Extensible Markup Language) documents from the results of arbitrary SQL queries. Within the Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.1 and 12.2.2 environments, it functions as a foundational infrastructure utility rather than an application-specific business API. Its purpose is to transform a SQL query cursor into a structured XML representation, applying configurable row tags, collection tags, rowset tags, and XSLT transformations to produce output suited to integration, reporting, or web-service consumption.

The package is owned by SYS and is shipped wrapped, meaning its source is obscured and cannot be modified or inspected directly. EBS modules invoke it indirectly through APPS synonyms and through higher-level XML and integration components, including Oracle XML Publisher, the Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway, and various interface and conversion utilities that require XML payloads derived from relational data.

Key Procedures and Functions

The documented API exposes roughly 32 procedures and functions. The principal ones include:

• NEWCONTEXT — creates a query context that binds a SQL statement to subsequent XML generation requests.
• NEWCONTEXTFROMHIERARCHY — builds a context from a hierarchical (CONNECT BY) query, supporting parent/child XML nesting.
• GETXML — returns the generated XML document as a CLOB for the active context.
• GETXMLTYPE — returns the generated XML as an XMLType instance, suitable for further XML processing.
• SETROWTAG / SETROWSETTAG — define XML element names for individual rows and for the enclosing row set.
• SETXSLT, SETXSLTPARAM, REMOVEXSLTPARAM — attach, parameterise, or remove an XSLT stylesheet applied to the generated XML.
• GETNUMROWSPROCESSED — reports how many rows were emitted.
• SETMAXROWS / SETSKIPROWS — control paging by limiting and offsetting the row range.
• SETCONVERTSPECIALCHARS / SETCHECKINVALIDCHARS — manage escaping of special characters and validation of invalid characters.
• USEITEMTAGSFORCOLL — controls whether item tags are applied to collection elements.
• SETNULLHANDLING / USENULLATTRIBUTEINDICATOR — determine how NULL values are represented in the output.
• RESTARTQUERY — re-executes the bound cursor from the beginning.
• CLOSECONTEXT — releases the context and associated resources.
• CONVERT — converts character data between representations.

Additional utility procedures handle context management and output formatting. No parameter signatures are documented in the ETRM metadata; the listing above reflects function intent only.

Tables Accessed

The ETRM metadata records no application tables referenced through APPS synonyms for this package. DBMS_XMLGEN is a generic engine: it does not read or write a fixed schema. Instead, it executes whatever SQL query is supplied by the caller at runtime, so the tables touched are determined entirely by the invoking component rather than by the package itself. This absence of static table dependencies is consistent with its classification as OTHER rather than an application API.

Usage Notes

DBMS_XMLGEN is typically invoked from PL/SQL custom code, concurrent program logic, database triggers, or integration middleware hosted inside the EBS database. It is rarely called directly from Oracle Forms; instead, Forms and OAF pages rely on higher-level services that internally delegate XML generation to this package. The documented metadata shows it is referenced by two other packages, confirming its role as a shared utility consumed by dependent database code.

When using it in EBS 12.1.1 or 12.2.2, developers must respect the editioning and synonym conventions of the APPS schema, manage context lifecycle with CLOSECONTEXT to avoid resource leakage, and account for CLOB handling when processing large result sets. Because the package body is wrapped, no local modifications are supported, and behaviour should be validated against each release level and database patch set.