ABF creates object files when it compiles the source code for application components such as frames, forms, and procedures. The logical/environment variable ING_ABFDIR points to the object code directory tree. Within this directory tree, ABF creates:

The following figure illustrates the object code directory tree. Subdirectories within this tree always have the same name as the databases and applications they contain.

ABF automatically generates unique names for object files. These names are usually based on the name of the associated source code files and follow the pattern objectname.obj.

Windows: If the environment variable ING_ABFDIR points to a directory called abfhome, the pathname for the application's compiled object files is:

c:\abfhome\dbname\applicationname

UNIX: If the environment variable ING_ABFDIR points to a directory called abfhome, the pathname for the application's compiled object files is:

/abfhome/dbname/applicationname

VMS: If the logical ING_ABFDIR points to DISK1:[ABFHOME], the directory for the compiled files of the application is:

DISK1:[ABFHOME.dbname.applicationname]

ABF always purges files from the object code directory.

When a frame or procedure does not compile correctly, information about the errors is stored in the error listing file. This file has the name componentname.lis, where componentname represents the name of the frame or procedure.

The error listing file is stored in the object code directory. You can examine the file directly from the Error Listing frame.

When ABF creates a compiled form while building an image, it creates file names as follows for the source code file:

where number is the object ID of the form, as stored in the ii_objects system catalog.

ABF also creates the file number.obj for the object code. In this case, both source and object files go into the object directory.

ABF uses the extract file to help build images. For an application that contains 3GL procedures, ABF also uses this file when you run the application with the Go operation. This file is called:

abextrac.c

abextract.c

abextract.mar