"PL/SQL" Documents

The PL/SQL procedure that generates a PL/SQL document must have the following standard API:

procedure <procedure name> 
  (document_id in varchar2,
   display_type in varchar2,
   document in out nocopy varchar2,
   document_type in out nocopy varchar2)

The arguments for the procedure are as follows:

document_id A string that uniquely identifies a document. This is the same string as the value that you specify in the default value field of the Attribute property page for a "PL/SQL" document (plsql:<procedure>/<document_identifier>). <procedure> should be replaced with the PL/SQL package and procedure name in the form of package.procedure. The phrase <document_identifier> should be replaced with the PL/SQL argument string that you want to pass directly to the procedure. The argument string should identify the document. For example: plsql:po_wf.show_req/2034. If you wish to generate the PL/SQL argument string value dynamically, create another item attribute, and reference that item attribute as "&ITEM_ATTRIBUTE" in place of the PL/SQL argument string. Then before any activity that references this other item attribute gets executed, call the WF_ENGINE.SetItemAttribute API to dynamically set the PL/SQL argument string value. For example: plsql:po_wf.show_req/&POREQ_NUMBER.
display_type One of three values that represents the content type used for the notification presentation, also referred to as the requested type:

  • text/plain - the document is embedded inside a plain text representation of the notification as viewed from an e-mail message. The entire e-mail message must be less than or equal to 32K, so depending on how large your e-mail template is, some of the plain text document that the procedure generates may get truncated. See: Modifying Your Message Templates.

  • text/html - the document is embedded inside an HTML representation of the notification as viewed from the Notification Web page, or the HTML attachment to an e-mail message. The procedure must generate an HTML representation of the document of up to 32K, but should not include top level HTML tags like <HTML> or <BODY> since the HTML page that the document is being inserted into already contains these tags. If you include top level HTML tags accidentally, Oracle Workflow removes the tags for you when the document attribute is referenced in a message body. Note that the procedure can alternatively generate a plain text document, as the notification system can automatically surround plain text with the appropriate HTML tags to preserve formatting.

  • '<type>/<subtype>' - the document is presented as a separate attachment to the notification. Any content type may be returned.

document The outbound text buffer where up to 32K of document text is returned.
document_type The outbound text buffer where the document content type is returned. Also referred to as the returned type. If no type is supplied, then 'text/plain' is assumed.
For a document that will be attached to the notification, the value for this argument can also include a file name for the attachment. If you do not specify a file name for the attachment as part of this argument, then Oracle Workflow uses the message attribute display name as the base file name and checks its list of defined MIME types and subtypes to determine the file extension, based on the display_type argument. If the MIME type and subtype specified in the display_type argument are not defined within Oracle Workflow, then the name of the specified subtype is used as the file extension. However, note that for some subtypes the file extension differs from the subtype name.
Consequently, you must explicitly specify the file name for the attachment in the document_type parameter if either of the following conditions applies:

  • You want to use a base file name that is different than the message attribute display name.

  • The MIME type and subtype for your document are not on the list defined within Oracle Workflow, and the file extension for the MIME subtype differs from the subtype name. For the list of MIME types and subtypes, see: MIME Types and Subtypes Defined Within Oracle Workflow.


To specify a file name as part of the document_type argument, use a semicolon (';') to separate the file name from the preceding value in the argument, and specify the file name in the format 'name=<filename>' with no spaces before or after the equal sign ('='). For example, you can set a value for the document type with the following command: 
document_type := 'text/html; name=filename.htm';

Note: If the file name contains a semicolon (;) or an equal sign (=), then you should include a backslash (\) as an escape character preceding the semicolon or equal sign. For example, if the file name is my;document.htm then set the document_type value as follows:

document_type := 'text/html; name=my\;document.htm';

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