Reflection in OpenEdge ABL / Progress 4GL

Question

I am not able to find anything on reflection in OpenEdge ABL and how to do it. Is it even possible?

Answer 1

It is possible. There are not as many possibilities in OpenEdge as in languagaes like Java or C#, but since version 11 it has basic functionality.

To use reflection look at Progress.Lang.Object which has a method GetClass() that returns an instance of Progress.Lang.Class.

These are the members of Progress.Lang.Class from the OpenEdge Help (Version 11.1, should be the same for all 11.x versions):

In earlier versions of OpenEdge the reflection capabilities were even worse. But it was possible to invoke methods and create instances dynamically.

You should also have a look at the DYNAMIC-NEW statement and the DYNAMIC-INVOKE function.

Answer 2

It hasn't been implemented yet.

Answer 3

And don't forget the GET-SIGNATURE() method and the INTERNAL-ENTRIES attribute.

Answer 4

I was looking for Reflection in OpenEdge ABL in 2021 and I found that there are more possibilities now (I'm using OE 11.6). I wasn't able to find extensive documentation but here is a start: https://docs.progress.com/bundle/openedge-oo-abl-develop-applications/page/Reflection.html

When using Progress Developer Studio you will able to see the possibilities when using auto-complete (Ctrl + Space).