Apex - Import / Export - apex

You can use apex_export.get_application to create Apex exports from pl/sql.
This works fine, but as with the APEXExport java utility, not everything is exported by default. Most options are set to false by default, so you should check carefully which ones you need.

The API Reference gives a simple example, but since I always seem to forget how to use apex_t_varchar2 types (having to use apex_string.push just doesn't seem logical somehow), I have included my own one here.

apex_export.get_application usage (Apex 23.1):

declare
  l_files      apex_t_export_files;
  l_components apex_t_varchar2;
  l_name       varchar2(100);
  l_contents   clob;
begin
  apex_string.push(l_components, 'PAGE:1001');
  l_files := apex_export.get_application(p_application_id          => 25384
                                        ,p_with_ir_public_reports  => true
                                        ,p_with_ir_private_reports => true
                                        ,p_components              => l_components);
  l_name  := l_files(1).name;
  dbms_output.put_line('l_name = ' || l_name);
  l_contents := l_files(1).contents;
  dbms_output.put_line('l_contents length = ' || length(l_contents));
end;

According to Doc ID 2893264.1 the ORA-08177 error can occur when using apex_export.get_application, after an upgrade to 22.1.

From that document:

CAUSE
  The issue has been identified as the product defect.
  The same was documented over the INTERNAL Bug 34534485  APPLICATION EXPORT FAILS WHEN USING SWITZERLAND NLS TERRITORY SETTING

SOLUTION
  1) for SQLcl: setting NLS_LANG in the session calling SQLcl
     export NLS_LANG='AMERICAN_AMERICA'
  or
  2) for both SQLcl and PL/SQL: adding this to the SQL or PL/SQL script
     alter session set nls_numeric_characters='.,';
Import the application and test the behavior.

Update 2025-12-04: This happened again (on Apex 23.2), and the solution outlined above did not work for me this time.
Note that I only got this error when exporting as YAML, not as (default) SQL. But that may be a coincidence...
What sometimes worked was running this a couple of times - the first few times gave the error but after that it worked. I suppose the commit does the trick here:

declare
   l_files apex_t_export_files;
begin
   commit;
   l_files := apex_export.get_application(p_application_id          => 25384
                                         ,p_type                    => 'READABLE_YAML'
                                         ,p_with_supporting_objects => 'Y'
                                         ,p_with_ir_public_reports  => true
                                         ,p_with_original_ids       => true);
end;

Once this completed without an error, the Apex Builder export option also worked again - in my case anyway.
You may try to (temporarily) disable some of the parameters, that seems to have a positive effect sometimes. But as mentioned before, after a number (or a lot) of tries the export tends to work again anyway, so that may also be a coincidence. Sigh...

Update 2026-03-19: When the second fix doesn't work, simply retrying a few times and/or waiting a few minutes also resolves the issue eventually.
So maybe the second fix above doesn't work either, but just seems to work sometimes, by chance...

Some useful links that discuss this solution - and the first one as well:
https://forums.oracle.com/ords/apexds/post/apex-22-1-application-export-fails-ora-08177-can-t-serializ-8448
https://forums.oracle.com/ords/apexds/post/apex-22-1-application-export-fails-9506

Info

apex_export.get_application

ORA-08177: can't serialize access for this transaction