ABL (Advanced Business Language) provides direct access to TCP/IP sockets, both unsecured sockets and secured sockets using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Sockets provide a means to implement interprocess communications with both local and remote processes. Using ABL sockets, you can communicate with non-ABL processes, as well as other ABL processes. Thus, you can implement socket-based applications completely in ABL that otherwise require the use of C modules accessible only through the HLC or shared library interfaces.
This chapter describes how you can access TCP/IP sockets directly from ABL. It assumes that you are familiar with basic TCP/IP socket programming and SSL.
Note: SSL incurs heavy performance penalties, depending on the client, server, and network resources and load. For more information, see OpenEdge Getting Started: Core Business Services - Security and Auditing.
