ABL DOJO HOW-TO

GUIDE
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April 2017

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 Contents

What is ABL Dojo? 4

Running code snippets 4
Creating new snippets 5
Loading existing snippets 6
Sharing snippets 7
Database (DB) and Schema 8
Personalization 8
Mobile 9
Getting Help 9

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What is ABL Dojo?
ABL Dojo is an interactive website and a developer utility that lets you write, run, and share
Progress OpenEdge Advanced Business Language (ABL) code from your web browser.

ABL Dojo aims to reduce the barrier to entry for new users by letting them try out
ABL without having to install any software. It is also useful as a scratch-pad editor
for current ABL developers to quickly try out snippets without having to launch their
development setup. All you need is a browser to start writing and executing ABL.

You can access ABL Dojo with this URL: https://abldojo.services.progress.com

Let’s understand each feature in detail.

Running code snippets

Click the link to launch ABL Dojo in your browser.

By default, the home page loads a “Hello World” sample.

Run the sample by clicking the Run button. You will see the result on the output
pane (which is on the right side of the editor).

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Voila! You have just executed an ABL program from your browser without having
to install any software or to launch your development setup.

Creating new snippets

Creating new snippets is easy. Once you have launched ABL Dojo, you can edit
the “hello world” sample to create a new snippet, or you can create new programs
including those with multiple files.

Let’s see it in action by creating a snippet that runs an external procedure.

Click the New File button.

Enter ExternalProcedure.p in the File Name field and click the Create button. It
creates a new External procedure with the name ExternalProcedure.p.

Add a display statement that prints “This is an External Procedure” in the output
console.

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Select Main.p from the navigator and delete all the contents of the file and write a
Run statement to run the ExternalProcedure.p.

That’s it, now all you should do is click the Run button to execute the snippet that you
have just created. Once it finishes running, you should see the output in the output pane.

Loading existing snippets

ABL Dojo also comes with pre-written snippets so that you can start exploring
different programming constructs and concepts without having to go through
the documentation for the available snippets.

Now let’s load a snippet and execute it. You can view all the available code snippets
by clicking the Load Snippets button on the bottom left corner of the screen.

Select a snippet and click the Load Code button. It loads the snippet into the current editor.
Execute the snippet by clicking the Run button.

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Sharing snippets
ABL Dojo also lets you share code snippets with your coworkers and in
communities. To share a code snippet, create the snippet that you want to share
and click the Share button.

Enter a name and a short description for the snippet and click the Save button.

This generates a unique sharable URL that can be shared with your coworkers or
embedded in your blogs and communities.

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Database (DB) and Schema
Each user session is also associated with a sample Sports 2000 database, and you can
write programs that interact with the DB using operations such as update, delete, or insert.

Click the Show Schema button (on the right bottom corner) to view the database
schema. You can also reset the database to its original state by clicking the Reset
button in the Schema view- this restores the database to the initial state and will
undo any changes you have made to the database.

Personalization
If you prefer a bit of personalization, we also have a darker theme. You can
change the theme by clicking the Themes button on the top right corner.

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Mobile
Wait, I almost forgot: you can access ABL Dojo from your favorite tablet or mobile
devices as well (support on mobile/tablet devices is experimental). You will get the
best experience on your desktop/laptop computer, but you might want to access
ABL DOJO when you are on the go.

Getting Help
ABL Dojo is offered at no cost, and comes with limited support.

If you have questions or suggestions on using or improving ABL Dojo, visit

Progress Community.

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About Progress

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business applications to succeed in an evolving business
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Corporation and/or one of its subsidiaries or affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. Any other
trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

© 2017 Progress Software Corporation and/or its subsidiaries or affiliates.

All rights reserved.
Rev 2017/05