Passing arguments for the userid, password, and appserver-info parameters is optional. However, the requirement to specify these arguments, and to provide specific values for any of them, depends on if and how the PAS for OpenEdge Connect procedure is being used on the server you are connecting.

Note: These arguments are ignored for a session-free application, because PAS for OpenEdge Connect procedures do not execute when a client connects with the session-free application model.

If a Connect procedure is defined for the PAS for OpenEdge instance, you must know how the Connect procedure uses its parameters to know how to specify the argument values. For example, the userid and password parameters can pass user credentials for a second level of authentication by the business application, or they can be used to pass any other information that the Connect procedure requires.

If you do not specify a value for an argument, OpenEdge passes the Unknown value (?) to the Connect procedure for that argument. OpenEdge only passes argument values to the Connect procedure from the CONNECT( ) method, and PAS for OpenEdge performs no evaluation of these arguments what so ever. It is the Connect procedure that actually evaluates the values that are passed.

Note: When determining what arguments to pass to the CONNECT( ) method, understand that a PAS for OpenEdge instance accepts a connection request only if any configured Connect procedure executes successfully.

If no Connect procedure is defined for the PAS for OpenEdge instance, you do not need to pass any arguments to these three parameters of the CONNECT( ) method. If you happen to provide them, they are ignored.

In the session-managed model, the PAS for OpenEdge Connect procedure has the ability to return a user-defined string if it uses the RETURN string or RETURN ERROR string statements. To access the string on the client, invoke the ABL RETURN-VALUE function immediately after invoking the CONNECT( ) method. An Unknown value (?) returned by this function indicates that the Connect procedure did not return a string.

For more information on Connect procedures, see Connect and Disconnect procedures.