Implementation

Within the folder "implementation", you can view and edit the code for the External Interface definition that you have opened. In this folder, each code section is represented by a subfolder. The left and right pane are automatically synchronized, which means that the subfolder that is selected always represents the code section where the cursor is positioned.

External Interface definitions contain the following code sections: 

When doing a right mouse click, a popup menu will display options to customize the view, display additional information or to perform certain actions on the code.

By setting the pop down menu options "Show line number" and "Show revision", extra information may (or may not) be displayed before each code line. For "Show revision", there are several options provided. When the option "Revision" (or "All") is selected, there will be shown five asterisks (*****) before every new code line. Only after checking in the current revision, these asterisks will be replaced with the new revision number.

Definitions

In this section you can declare the interfaces of the external library, its routines and the parameters.

The definition section begins with the keyword "BEGIN_DEFINITIONS" and ends with the keyword "END_DEFINITIONS". Between these keywords, Interfaces are defined below the keyword "TYPE".

Interfaces begin with the keyword "INTERFACE" followed by the name of the interface and end with the keyword "END_INTERFACE". Inside of the Interface the Routines with their parameters are defined.

Routines begin with the keyword "ROUTINE" followed by the name and then Parentheses. In between the Parentheses the parameters of the routine can be defined.

The parameters of routines are defined using pictures similarly to the variable in a COBOL program, the only difference is that there should be a colon set between the parameter name and the picture clause and the ending period may be omitted. Depending on the validation option of the external interface, the parameters defined here must have the same type and size as the using parameters of the call statement to the interface to avoid warnings or errors. 

Below your Interfaces the External Interface definition is closed by the before mentioned "END_DEFINITIONS" keyword.