Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Getting Started:
New and Revised Features

Object-oriented programming

OpenEdge 10.1A includes support for classes in the Progress 4GL. This support includes significant extensions to the language that allow you to code 4GL application objects using an object-oriented development model. These new class-based objects can coexist in the same application and communicate with procedure-based objects (persistent procedures), which Release 10.1A continues to support from previous releases of OpenEdge. In other words, there is no need to change any existing application code to add class-based objects to your application.

Progress 4GL classes support many of the standard features of a complete object-oriented programming language, such as inheritance, polymorphism, and interfaces. Other features, such as method overloading, will be available in a future release.

OpenEdge supports class-based objects in all types of 4GL sessions (for example, WebClient and AppServer agent sessions). However, a client session cannot directly instantiate or invoke methods on a remote class-based object running on an AppServer. AppServer clients can invoke remote procedures and user-defined functions to communicate with class-based objects on the AppServer. The ability to directly instantiate and communicate with a remote class-based object will be available in a future release.

For more information on the object-oriented extensions to the Progress 4GL, see the "Object-oriented extensions" section.

For more information, see:

Manuals:	OpenEdge Getting Started: Object-oriented Programming    OpenEdge Development: Progress 4GL Reference
HTML online help:	Progress 4GL Reference