Preliminary Concepts › Components of a CA Ideal Application › Program Definition

Program Definition

Several facilities are provided for defining a CA Ideal program:

• The Program Identification Panel lets the application developer initiate the creation of a program and provide descriptive commentary about the program.
• The Program Resources Panel specifies the authorized resources a program uses.
• The Parameter Definition Panel describes and names data used as input parameters to a program. Parameters are only defined if the program requires them.
• The Working Data Definition Panel names and describes data items that are local to each program. This facility is used only when working data items must be defined for the program.
• The Procedure Definition Language (PDL) is a high-level language that defines procedures. It includes an integrated database sub-language, facilities for modularization, structured design and development, arithmetic capability, report production, transaction and panel processing, built-in functions, and error handling.
• The Procedure Definition Panel lets you enter the PDL statements. The Procedure Definition Panel provides a powerful editor that lets the programmer work in the same editing environment across all operating systems, and provides templates that help to ensure structured code. All other panels used in CA Ideal provide some subset of these editing capabilities.
• For sites that have the CA Datacom Database SQL Option, the Environment Panel specifies SQL precompiler options for the program.

  For complete information about the program definition panels, see the Creating Programs Guide. For complete descriptions of PDL statements and functions, see the Programming Reference Guide.