DDE SEND statement

(Windows only)

Sends a new value to a dynamic data exchange (DDE) server data item associated with the specified DDE conversation.

This statement is supported only for backward compatibility. Use the Component Object Model (COM) instead.

Syntax

DDE SEND ddeid SOURCE data ITEM name
  [ TIME seconds]
  [ NO-ERROR ]

ddeid

An integer expression that equals the channel number of the conversation opened for the specified data item. It is the value returned by the DDE INITIATE statement that opened the conversation.

SOURCE data

Specifies the new value for the server data item, where data is a character expression that renders the new value in a format acceptable to the data item.

ITEM name

Specifies the name of the server data item to receive the new value. The data item name is a character expression that identifies the data item according to the conventions of the server application (for example, the row and column coordinates of a worksheet cell, such as R2C1 in Microsoft Excel).

TIME seconds

Specifies the maximum number of seconds that the ABL client waits for the DDE SEND statement to complete, where seconds is an integer expression. If you do not specify the TIME option or specify a value of 0, the AVM waits indefinitely for the statement to complete.

NO-ERROR

The NO-ERROR option is used to prevent the statement from raising ERROR and displaying error messages.

Regardless of whether NO-ERROR is used, the AVM posts the error to the DDE frame DDE-ERROR attribute.

Example

The following fragment shows a typical use of the DDE SEND statement. It assumes that the Microsoft Excel application is running, and has created the default Excel worksheet, Sheet1. It then uses the DDE INITIATE statement to open a conversation with Sheet1 as the topic. This allows the AVM to exchange data with the cells of the worksheet. In this example, the fragment assigns column headings to the top row of the first three columns in the worksheet using the DDE SEND statement.

DEFINE VARIABLE Sheet1   AS INTEGER NO-UNDO. /* DDE-ID to worksheet topic */
DEFINE VARIABLE DDEframe AS HANDLE  NO-UNDO. /* DDE frame handle */

CREATE FRAME DDEframe.                       /* Create DDE frame */
. . .
/* Open a DDE conversation with Sheet1 and assign column headings. */
DDE INITIATE Sheet1 FRAME DDEframe APPLICATION "Excel" TOPIC "Sheet1".
DDE SEND Sheet1 SOURCE "Name"      ITEM "R1C1".
DDE SEND Sheet1 SOURCE "YTD Sales" ITEM "R1C2".
DDE SEND Sheet1 SOURCE "State"     ITEM "R1C3".
. . .

Note

For more information on using the DDE protocol to exchange data with non-ABL applications, see OpenEdge Programming Interfaces.

See also

DDE INITIATE statement, NO-ERROR option