Syntax-completion assistance proposes syntax to complete the code that you are typing in the ABL Editor. When you press CTRL+SPACE, proposals appear in the left pane of a pop-up window, with reference information about the selected item in the right pane, as in this example:
To insert an element at the current cursor position, select it and double-click or press ENTER.
Press CTRL+SPACE to get proposals in any of these contexts:
- ABL keywords
- Object variable and property names that are reserved keywords
- Object references for the CREATE statement
- Procedures names and paths for the RUN statement (based on PROPATH)
- Widget variables and handles
- Parameters of procedures and methods
- Table names for connected databases
- Fields for temp-tables, buffers, and datasets
- Preprocessor names
- Subscripted array references
By default, syntax-completion assistance filters proposals based on context (for example, showing only relevant keywords). Press CTRL+SPACE while the pop-up window is open to toggle between context-filtered proposals and all proposals.
In addition to invoking completion assistance at any time by pressing CTRL+SPACE, you can have the ABL Editor propose completion options automatically when you type a period in a schema reference, or when you type a colon in a handle or object reference. To enable this feature, select the Automatically propose completion on '.' and ':' option on the Editor Assistance Preferences page.
If you want to see only certain types of syntax-completion proposals, you can suppress the others. Under Exclude proposals on the Editor Assistance Preferences page, check the categories that you do not want to see.