Sending Email from an Application

Sending Email Using a Background Job

Oracle Application Express stores unsent email messages in a table named HTMLDB_MAIL_QUEUE. A DBMS_JOB background process is automatically created when you install Oracle Application Express. This background process pushes the mail queue every 15 minutes.

The most efficient approach to sending email is to create a background job (using a DBMS_JOB package) to periodically send all mail messages stored in the active mail queue.

Sending Email Manually by Calling HTMLDB_MAIL

You can also send an email from an Oracle Application Express application by calling the PL/SQL HTMLDB_MAIL package. This package is built on top of the Oracle supplied UTL_SMTP package. Because of this dependence, in order to use HTMLDB_MAIL, the UTL_SMTP package must be installed and functioning.

HTMLDB_MAIL contains two procedures for manually sending email:

• Use the HTMLDB_MAIL.SEND procedure to manually send an outbound email message from your application

• Use HTMLDB_MAIL to deliver mail messages stored in HTMLDB_MAIL_QUEUE

Oracle Application Express stores unsent email messages in a table named HTMLDB_MAIL_QUEUE. You can deliver mail messages stored in this queue to the specified SMTP gateway by calling the procedure HTMLDB_MAIL.PUSH_QUEUE.

Oracle Application Express logs successfully submitted messages in the table HTMLDB_MAIL_LOG with the timestamp reflecting your server's local time.

The following UNIX/LINUX example demonstrates the use of the HTMLDB_MAIL.PUSH_QUEUE procedure using a shell script.

SQLPLUS / <<EOF
FLOWS_020100.HTMLDB_MAIL.PUSH_QUEUE;
DISCONNECT
EXIT
EOF