APEX_ZIP Example

In Oracle 12c onwards, on which the Oracle Apex is by default installed, you can use APEX_ZIP PL/SQL package to zip the files. So here I am giving a few Oracle APEX_ZIP examples:

Oracle APEX_ZIP Example

The following PL/SQL code gets the files (BLOB) from a table and zip it, and gives you a final BLOB that has all the files you added.

declare
   b_zip_file blob;

   cursor c_files
    is
    select file_name,
    file_content
    from emp_files
       where empno = 7894;

begin
   for c in c_files 
   loop
      -- adds the each blob to b_zip_file blob one by one
      apex_zip.add_file (
      p_zipped_blob => b_zip_file,
      p_file_name => c.file_name,
      p_content => c.file_content );
   end loop;

   -- finalizes the blob
   apex_zip.finish (
     p_zipped_blob => b_zip_file );

end;

You can see in the above code that at the end, you will get the final BLOB which you can further store in the table or send it to a procedure or write a file on the server.

The following example is an addition to the above code. After zipping the files, it will write the zip file to the server.

Zip Files using APEX_ZIP package and Write to the Server

To write the file on the server, you need an Oracle Directory object. Below is an example, how to create a directory object in Oracle pointing to a directory on the server.

Create or Replace directory my_dir as '/your/server/path';

After creating the directory, you can write the zip file as shown in the below example:

declare
   b_zip_file blob;

   -- variables for writing the files
   l_file       UTL_FILE.file_type;
   l_buffer     RAW (32767);
   l_amount     BINARY_INTEGER := 32767;
   l_pos        INTEGER := 1;
   l_blob_len   INTEGER;
   -- end variable declaration for file
   cursor c_files
    is
    select file_name,
    file_content
    from emp_files
       where empno = 7894;
begin
   for c in c_files 
   loop
      -- adds the each blob to b_zip_file blob one by one
      apex_zip.add_file (
      p_zipped_blob => b_zip_file,
      p_file_name => c.file_name,
      p_content => c.file_content );
   end loop;

   -- finalizes the blob
   apex_zip.finish (
     p_zipped_blob => b_zip_file );
   
   -- write the file
   l_blob_len := DBMS_LOB.getlength (b_zip_file);

   l_file :=
      UTL_FILE.fopen ('MY_DIR',
                     'my_zip.zip',
                      'WB',
                      32767);

   WHILE l_pos < l_blob_len
   LOOP

      DBMS_LOB.read (b_zip_file,
                     l_amount,
                     l_pos,
                     l_buffer);
      UTL_FILE.put_raw (l_file, l_buffer, TRUE);
      l_pos := l_pos + l_amount;
   END LOOP;

   UTL_FILE.fclose (l_file);
end;

After running the above PL/SQL code, you will find the file my_zip.zip at the MY_DIR directory location on the server.

Related Tutorials:

• How to Get BLOB from File in PL/SQL?
• How to UNZIP a File in PL/SQL?

Reference:

• APEX_ZIP Oracle Manual