When you plan an application, one of the fundamental topics to think about is the compiler format in which you want that application generated. PowerBuilder offers two alternatives: Pcode and machine code.
Pcode (short for pseudocode) is an interpreted language that is supported on all PowerBuilder platforms. This is the same format that PowerBuilder uses in libraries (PBL files) to store individual objects in an executable state. Advantages of Pcode include its size, reliability, and portability.
PowerBuilder generates and compiles code to create a machine code executable or dynamic library. The key advantage of machine code is speed of execution.
PowerBuilder DLLs cannot be called
PowerBuilder machine code DLLs cannot be called from other
applications.
Here are some guidelines to help you decide whether Pcode or machine code is right for your project:
Speed If your application does intensive script processing, you might want to consider using machine code. It will perform better than Pcode if your code makes heavy use of looping constructs, floating point or integer arithmetic, or function calls. If your application does not have these characteristics, machine code does not perform noticeably better than Pcode. If you think your application might benefit from the use of machine code, perform some benchmark testing to find out.
Pcode is faster to generate than machine code. Even if you plan to distribute your application using machine code, you might want to use Pcode when you want to quickly create an executable version of an application for testing.
Size The files generated for Pcode are smaller than those generated for machine code. If your application is to be deployed on computers where file size is a major issue, or if you deploy it using a Web download or file transfer, then you might decide to give up the speed of machine code and choose Pcode instead.
