Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Progress 4GL Handbook

Defining static objects

You’ve already seen several uses of the DEFINE statement. You have defined program variables for your procedures with the DEFINE VARIABLE statement. You have also seen the AppBuilder-generated DEFINE BUTTON statements for the four buttons in the Customers and Orders window you built in Chapter 4, " Introducing the OpenEdge AppBuilder."

These two forms are representative of two basic ways you can use the DEFINE statement, one to define a variable for a data value that is viewed in a particular way and the other to define an object that doesn’t represent a data value. In this section, you’ll look at the two forms in a general way. Then in the next chapter, you’ll look at specific types of objects you define in each way.