ABL has long supported the ability to program with objects built from persistent procedures (procedure objects). These objects feature and depend almost entirely on run-time management to organize them for use in an application. With OpenEdge® Release 10.1, ABL includes support for classes. Classes allow an ABL developer to program with objects built from user-defined classes (class-based objects) that can be defined and organized for use by an application at compile time. The developer can define and manage class-based objects using the standard features of object-oriented programming available in programming languages, such as Java. The developer can also use procedure-based and class-based objects together in a single application.
This manual introduces object-oriented programming using classes in ABL and also describes how to work with class-based and procedure objects together.
