ABL also supports a QUIT statement to terminate the application altogether. The AVM raises the QUIT condition only when it encounters a QUIT statement. The default handling of the QUIT condition differs from STOP in these ways:

  • The AVM commits, rather than undoes, the current transaction.
  • Even if the user specifies the –p startup option to define the main procedure in your application, it returns to the operating system rather than trying to rerun the startup procedure. In other words, the AVM quits the session unconditionally.

Summary

Having completed this section, you now have a thorough grounding in all the essentials of ABL programming with static statements. In the next three sections, you learn how to use dynamic constructs to define both the user interface and the data management code for parts of your application. Then, in the final section, you learn some useful advanced ABL constructs as well as some best practices guidelines for building efficient and maintainable procedures.