This update describes a sample application consisting of an ABL program and a C program that communicate through a Windows named pipe. Both programs can read and write the named pipe. The ABL program accesses the sports2000 database. When you run the application, you must tell one program to write the named pipe and the other program to read it.

If you tell the C program to write and the ABL program to read:

The C program... While the ABL program...
  • Solicits a customer number from the user
  • Writes the customer number to the named pipe
  • Reads the named pipe, getting the customer number the user entered
  • Retrieves the row of the customer with the specified customer number
  • Displays the row of the customer table

If you tell the ABL program to write and the C program to read:

The ABL Program... While the C program...
  • Reads the entire customer table
  • Writes the name of each customer to the named pipe
  • Reads the named pipe into a buffer
  • Displays the number of bytes read and the contents of the buffer