Progress ABL is a strongly typed, late-bound, English-like programming language with growing support for object orientation. The compiled code is run by the "AVM" (ABL Virtual Machine). The language is developed and maintained by the Progress Corporation (formerly Progress Software).

This book provides the 4GL programmer with in-depth information about various programming topics for the Progress 4GL. Use it along with the Progress Language Reference as a comprehensive guide and reference to programming with Progress.

Home OpenEdge Programming Interfaces... Programming example. The exercise in this section demonstrates the techniques available when using headers and footers in a report. To see an example of using headers and footers in a report: Open i-10-10.p and run it. Click Report. The Report Output dialog box appears:

Where the language is concerned, you should refer to OpenEdge Development: Progress 4GL Reference. This manual contains complete descriptions of all of the 4GL's methods, attributes, and events, and an alphabetical listing of all the language keywords.

OpenEdge Advanced Business Language, or OpenEdge ABL for short, is a business application development language created and maintained by Progress Software Corporation. Typically classified as a fourth-generation programming language, it utilizes an English-like syntax to simplify software development. [1]

ABL (Advanced Business Language) is a high-level procedural programming language developed to enable you to build almost all aspects of an enterprise business application, from the user interface to the database access and business logic.

Oct 14, 2024 · Single programming statements in ABL can do the work of dozens or possibly hundreds of lines of code in a standard 3rd Generation Language, such as Visual Basic, Java, or C++. For example, a single ABL statement can access both existing data in an application database and apply changes to that data in the database.

Oct 3, 2024 · To accommodate adding and modifying these new Super Procedures, the Progress/OpenEdge 4GL/ABL provides several Statements, Attributes, Methods and Functions. For example: When running procedures or dynamic-functions, Progress searches for these processes in the Super Procedures stack.

Apr 21, 2025 · OpenEdge documentation may provide example code that illustrates syntax and concepts. You can access many of the example files, and details for installing them, from the following locations: A self-extracting Documentation and Samples file available on the OpenEdge download page of the Progress Software Download Center

The Progress 4GL language is sometimes also called Progress OpenEdge or the Progress "Advanced Business Language" (ABL). Though there are newer versions, they are all just incremental differences over the original 4GL language.