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Overview
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Overview

OWA_CX is a low-level Oracle-supplied package owned by SYS that defines a small set of character constants used throughout the Oracle Web Agent (OWA) and MOD_PLSQL runtime infrastructure. In Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.1 and 12.2.2, OWA_CX forms part of the same foundational PL/SQL stack that underpins the Apache/mod_plsql-based middle tier. EBS uses this stack extensively for the Oracle Applications Framework (OAF), the HTML-based Self-Service applications, JSP integrations, and numerous Oracle Application Server (OC4J or WebLogic) servlet-to-database calls.

The package exists purely as a namespace of named constants. Its business value is not in application logic but in providing a stable, readable naming convention for control characters that would otherwise be embedded as magic numbers throughout web-tier PL/SQL code. Developers in EBS use OWA_CX.HT_CHAR, OWA_CX.NL_CHAR, and similar constants when constructing HTTP responses, delimited text streams, or XML/HTML fragments generated from the database tier.

Key Procedures and Functions

The ETRM metadata for OWA_CX documents zero procedures or functions. The package specification is entirely declarative and exposes five constants:

  • NL_CHAR — line feed (chr(10)); used to terminate text lines in generated output streams.
  • SP_CHAR — space (chr(32)); used for whitespace padding in formatted output.
  • BS_CHAR — backspace (chr(8)); used in terminal-style or fixed-width text manipulation.
  • HT_CHAR — horizontal tab (chr(9)); the constant most frequently referenced in EBS customizations for tab-delimited output, especially in interface-file and outbound flat-file generation.
  • XP_CHAR — exclamation point (chr(33)); used in certain OWA delimiters and as an escape marker in legacy OWA text streams.

Because none of these are procedures or functions, no parameter lists exist. The package body is not required; OWA_CX is spec-only.

Tables Accessed

The ETRM metadata lists no referenced tables, directly or via APPS synonyms. OWA_CX performs no DML and issues no queries. It is a pure constant-holder package and therefore has no data access footprint, no locking behaviour, and no impact on tablespace or undo consumption.

Usage Notes

OWA_CX is referenced by at least five other packages in the database, reflecting its role as shared infrastructure. Within EBS it is typically invoked from custom PL/SQL that emits HTML, delimited text, or HTTP headers via the OWA_UTIL, HTP, and HTF packages. A common pattern in EBS 12.x customizations is concatenating OWA_CX.HT_CHAR into an outbound interface string, or appending OWA_CX.NL_CHAR when assembling a text file returned through a concurrent program's output.

Since the package is owned by SYS and is an Oracle-supplied object, customers must not modify it. There is no supported reason to patch or wrap OWA_CX. Because it is invoked implicitly by Oracle's own web toolkit packages, its constants may also appear in logs or generated HTTP bodies produced by OAF pages and JSP callbacks in both 12.1.1 and 12.2.2. Developers searching for "ht_char" in EBS code most often encounter it as a readability alias for the tab character in flat-file and CSV-style output routines.