Introduction to PowerBuilder

Introduction

You might be knowing that when you write a program, you need to store it in a file. For example, a 'C' program, would be stored in a file with '.c' extension. Similarly, a COBOL file with '.cbl' extension and a FoxPro program with '.prg' extension. All PowerBuilder objects and scripts are to be stored in a file with '.pbl' extension. 'pbl' stands for PowerBuilder Library. Unlike 'C', 'FoxPro' or 'COBOL, you need to create PowerBuilder library before you start creating any PowerBuilder objects and scripts.

As part of these courses, you will be developing "Product Management System" application. For this application we need a PowerBuilder library called product.pbl (actually, you can name it anything, however, we recommend you to use product.pbl since we used it in all the examples).

There is one more distinction between other languages like C, FoxPro, COBOL and PowerBuilder. In them you need to create a separate file for each program you write. Where as in PowerBuilder, you create one library and all objects & scripts you create will be stored in that library. You see the difference when you search for it from the operating system (through 'DIR' command, File Manager or MS-Windows Explorer). Here you will find only one file, i.e., product.pbl; but when you open the same file in PowerBuilder, you will find all the objects you stored in the product.pbl library.

In this session, we don't go into details about Library painter and Application painter. We will revisit them as and when required in the coming sessions.

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