The PowerScript language has many built-in functions, but you may find that you need to code the same procedure over and over again. For example, you may need to perform a certain calculation in several places in an application or in different applications. In such a situation, create a user-defined function to perform the processing.
A user-defined function is a collection of PowerScript statements that perform some processing. After you define a user-defined function and save it in a library, any application accessing that library can use the function.
There are two kinds of user-defined functions, global and object-level functions.
Global functions are not associated with any object in your application and are always accessible anywhere in the application.
They correspond to the PowerBuilder built-in functions that are not associated with an object, such as the mathematical and string-handling functions. You define global functions in the Function painter.
Object-level functions are defined for a window, menu, user object, or application object. These functions are part of the object’s definition and can always be used in scripts for the object itself. You can choose to make these functions accessible to other scripts as well.
These functions correspond to built-in functions that are defined for specific PowerBuilder objects such as windows or controls. You define object-level functions in a Script view for the object.
