Creating RSS Feed in Oracle APEX

Published on 20 Jul 2025 by CHATURVEDINIDHI26@GMAIL.COM

How to Create an RSS Feed in Oracle APEX

1. Introduction

This guide explains how to generate a valid RSS XML Feed from your Oracle APEX application without using RESTful services. It’s ideal for sharing blog updates with users or feed readers.

2. Prerequisites

   
• A table like BLOG\_POSTS containing blog content.
   
• Published blog posts stored with a status column (e.g., STATUS = 'PUBLISHED').
   
• Oracle APEX app with public page access enabled.
 

3. SQL Source

Your blog data source can look like this:

SELECT ID, TITLE, SHORT\_DESC, CREATED\_DATE  
FROM BLOG\_POSTS  
WHERE STATUS = 'PUBLISHED'  
ORDER BY CREATED\_DATE DESC;

4. PL/SQL Code to Generate RSS

Create a PL/SQL Dynamic Content Region with this code:

BEGIN  
 owa\_util.mime\_header('text/xml', FALSE);  
 htp.p('Cache-Control: no-cache');  
 owa\_util.http\_header\_close;

 htp.p('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>');  
 htp.p('<rss version="2.0"><channel>');  
 htp.p('<title>My Blog RSS</title>');  
 htp.p('<link>https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/r/myblog/rss-feed</link>');  
 htp.p('<description>Latest blog posts</description>');

 FOR rec IN (  
   SELECT ID, TITLE, SHORT\_DESC, CREATED\_DATE  
   FROM BLOG\_POSTS  
   WHERE STATUS = 'PUBLISHED'  
   ORDER BY CREATED\_DATE DESC  
   FETCH FIRST 10 ROWS ONLY  
 ) LOOP  
   htp.p('<item>');  
   htp.p('<title>' || apex\_escape.html(rec.TITLE) || '</title>');  
   htp.p('<link>https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/r/myblog/view-blog-post?p16\_id=' || rec.ID || '</link>');  
   htp.p('<description>' || apex\_escape.html(rec.SHORT\_DESC) || '</description>');  
   htp.p('<pubDate>' || TO\_CHAR(rec.CREATED\_DATE, 'Dy, DD Mon YYYY HH24:MI:SS') || ' GMT</pubDate>');  
   htp.p('</item>');  
 END LOOP;

 htp.p('</channel></rss>');  
 apex\_application.stop\_apex\_engine;  
END;

5. Page Settings

   
• Set the page as Public (Authentication: Page is Public).
   
• Remove any UI elements — it should return only XML.
   
• Test the page URL, e.g.:      
  https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/r/myblog/rss-feed    
 

6. Add RSS Link to Blog

Use this in your blog’s HTML to add an RSS link:

<a href="https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/r/myblog/rss-feed" target="\_blank">  
 <img src="https://img.icons8.com/fluency/48/rss.png" alt="RSS Feed" style="vertical-align:middle;" /> Subscribe via RSS  
</a>

7. Conclusion

You’ve now created a fully functional RSS feed in Oracle APEX using PL/SQL and a public page. You can share this URL with users or connect it to platforms like Feedly, Outlook, or other RSS readers.