Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Progress 4GL Reference

HANDLE attribute

A handle to the object.

Data type: HANDLE

Access: Readable

Applies to: BROWSE widget (browse and cell), Buffer object handle, Buffer-field object handle, BUTTON widget, COMBO-BOX widget, Data-relation object handle, ProDataSet object handle, Data-source object handle, DIALOG-BOX widget, EDITOR widget, FIELD-GROUP widget, FILL-IN widget, FRAME widget, IMAGE widget, LITERAL widget, MENU widget, MENU-ITEM widget, Query object handle, RADIO-SET widget, RECTANGLE widget, SELECTION-LIST widget, SLIDER widget, Server socket object handle, Socket object handle, SUB-MENU widget, Temp-table object handle, TEXT widget, TOGGLE-BOX widget, WEB-CONTEXT system handle, WINDOW widget

You can store this value in a WIDGET-HANDLE variable. You can also use it to associate one widget with another widget or with a system handle. For example, you can assign the HANDLE value of the menu bar to the MENU-BAR attribute of a window, or you can make the window the current window by assigning its HANDLE value to the CURRENT-WINDOW handle.

For query objects, the HANDLE attribute lets you acquire a query object for a static query, as the following fragment demonstrates:

my-query-handle = QUERY q:HANDLE.

The following code fragment uses the HANDLE attribute of a buffer-field to retrieve the buffer-field’s handle:

my-buffer-field = city:HANDLE IN BUFFER customer.

The preceding code fragment requires that you know the name of the field (in this case, “city”) at compile time. The following code fragment, which performs the same task, does not require this:

my-buffer = BUFFER customer:HANDLE my-buffer-field = my-buffer:buffer-field("city").

For more information on query, buffer, and buffer-field objects, see OpenEdge Development: Progress 4GL Handbook .