🔐 Accessing External APIs with PL/SQL: ACL Configuration, HTTP Requests, and JSON Handling

If you need to make HTTP calls to consume a REST API directly from Oracle using PL/SQL, this guide is for you. Below are the complete steps—from configuring access permissions to parsing the JSON response.

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🔸 Part 1: Configuring ACL to Allow External Access

Before anything else, you need to grant your Oracle user permission to access external URLs using Access Control Lists (ACLs).

✅ Create the ACL

✅ Assign the ACL to the external host

🔁 Alternative for Oracle 12c+ using append_host_ace

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🌐 Part 2: Making HTTP Requests with UTL_HTTP

Once access is granted, you can perform GET and POST requests easily.

📥 Example: GET Request

📨 Example: POST Request with JSON

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🔍 Part 3: Parsing JSON Responses in PL/SQL

After receiving the API response, you can extract data using native JSON functions like JSON_VALUE.

🧪 Example: Extracting a Field with JSON_VALUE

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💬 Now you have a complete guide to integrating Oracle with external REST APIs using only PL/SQL.

✅ Final Thoughts

Connecting Oracle databases with external APIs using PL/SQL may seem challenging at first, but with the right configuration and techniques, it's a powerful way to expand the capabilities of your systems. By setting up ACLs correctly, using UTL_HTTP to handle requests, and parsing responses with native JSON functions, you can automate integrations, consume external services, and modernize legacy routines with clean, efficient PL/SQL code.

This approach opens the door to richer data ecosystems, seamless communication between platforms, and smarter, API-driven architectures—all directly from within the database layer.

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