Dynamic data exchange (DDE) is a protocol Windows provides for inter-process communications.
Note: OpenEdge support for DDE is a deprecated feature. OpenEdge supports DDE for backward compatibility only. For inter-process communication on Windows platforms, consider using the Microsoft Component Object Model (COM). OpenEdge support for COM is documented in UsingCOM Objects in ABL.
Using this protocol, two applications communicate in a client/server relationship in which the client initiates the communications and the server exchanges data with and provides services to the client. This is a very flexible IPC mechanism that enables a range of capabilities from simple data transmission between two applications to the ability for multiple applications to "work" in each other's environments. For example, a word processing application might create and modify spreadsheets in a spreadsheet application, and the spreadsheet application might, in turn, create and modify documents in the word processing application.
