Advanced PowerBuilder

Dynamic Data Exchange

This session is the first of the two, concerned with using PowerBuilder to communicate with other software packages. If PowerBuilder can't perform a task, ship the data to another package, and let it use its functionality to perform the required task and wait for the return of the end result.

For example, suppose you wanted to spell check the textual information in the database. As Powersoft did not build a spell checker into PowerBuilder, normally this task wouldn't be performed. However, by using some form of communication between packages, you can use a word-processor to perform this check for you.

The form of communication we are going to investigate here is called 'Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)', one of the first Client/Server ways of exchanging data.

In This Session You Will Learn:

• The concepts of DDE.
• DDE related events in PowerBuilder.
• Communicating with Excel using DDE.
• Mail Merge Using Word and DDE.

Estimated Session Time

150+ minutes

Prerequisites:

• You should have PowerBuilder (Desktop/ Professional/ Enterprise version) installed on your computer.