Don’t (always) call v()

Instead of calling a function, when you can get the same effect by accessing a documented PL/SQL variable, you should. For example:

v('APP_USER')    = APEX_APPLICATION.g_user
v('REQUEST')     = APEX_APPLICATION.g_request
v('APP_ID')      = APEX_APPLICATION.g_flow_id
v('APP_PAGE_ID') = APEX_APPLICATION.g_flow_step_id
v('DEBUG')       = APEX_APPLICATION.g_debug

(Note – g_debug is a boolean, unlike the v() equivalent)

UPDATE: If you’re using APEX 5, you can now get the User and Session ID from the APEX$SESSION application context.

There’s more here: documentation for the APEX_APPLICATION package

I suspect that the implementation of v() is something like this [EDIT: read the comments for more commentary on this, and a more accurate picture of what v() actually does]:

FUNCTION v (p_name IN VARCHAR2) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
  res VARCHAR2(4000);
BEGIN
  CASE p_name
  WHEN 'APP_ID' THEN
    res := APEX_APPLICATION.g_flow_id;
  WHEN 'APP_USER' THEN
    res := APEX_APPLICATION.g_user;
  WHEN 'DEBUG' THEN
    IF APEX_APPLICATION.g_debug THEN
      res := 'YES';
    ELSE
      res := 'NO';
    END IF;
  WHEN 'REQUEST' THEN
    res := APEX_APPLICATION.g_request;
  ... etc. ...
  ELSE
    BEGIN
      SELECT s.item_value
      INTO res
      FROM wwv_<session-values-or-something> s
      WHERE s.item_name = p_name
      AND s.flow_id = APEX_APPLICATION.g_flow_id
      AND s.session_id = APEX_APPLICATION.g_instance;
    EXCEPTION
      WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND THEN
        RETURN NULL;
    END;
  END CASE;
  RETURN res;
END v;

In addition, instead of calling v('APP_SESSION') / v('SESSION'), you could call the undocumented function APEX_APPLICATION.get_session_id instead, which is probably faster, or refer to the global variable APEX_APPLICATION.g_instance instead. I would suspect that the function normally just returns g_instance anyway, but it’s possible there’s some more logic behind the function.

Disclaimer: use undocumented bits at your own risk.

Some other undocumented goodies that may be useful include (and a lot of these are not available at all via v()):

APEX_APPLICATION.g_flow_alias = application alias
APEX_APPLICATION.g_flow_name = application name
APEX_APPLICATION.g_flow_version = application version string
APEX_APPLICATION.g_flow_status = app availability status code, e.g. AVAILABLE_W_EDIT_LINK
APEX_APPLICATION.g_build_status = app build status code, e.g. RUN_AND_BUILD
APEX_APPLICATION.g_base_href = the base URL for the site, not including the f?p=... bit
APEX_APPLICATION.g_printer_friendly = TRUE if the page was requested with Printer Friendly flag
APEX_APPLICATION.g_excel_format = TRUE if the page’s report is being rendered in CSV format
APEX_APPLICATION.g_date_format = Application default date format
APEX_APPLICATION.g_date_time_format = Application date time format
APEX_APPLICATION.g_timestamp_format = Application default timestamp format
APEX_APPLICATION.g_timestamp_tz_format = Application default timestamp with time zone format

You can have a peek at all the globals in this package with this query (but be warned, any undocumented ones may change, and may not necessarily be set to any meaningful value when your code is running):

select owner, trim(text)
from dba_source
where name = 'WWV_FLOW'
and type = 'PACKAGE'
and ltrim(text) like 'g%'
order by owner desc, line;