ANSI Standard PL/B Language and Visual PL/B

MMCC ANSWER / MASTER PROGRAMS

The PL/B runtime environment uses a concept of called the ANSWER / MASTER programs for starting a system. When the PLBWIN runtime is started in a folder it looks for a program called ANSWER. Traditionally the ANSWER program would check for logon security then chain to a program called MASTER which would be the main menu.

The MASTER or MENU program would chain to various application program which would chain back to the menu on exit.

Application program can also issue a STOP instruction. In this case the ANSWER program is executed again.

The PLBWIN command line can also name the program to be used as the ANSWER program. Traditionally MMCC wrote a main menu program and executed it by name. It performed the function of ANSWER as well as MASTER and MENU.

Many of our systems can still be executed by naming the first program. Take the FREDDY real estate system for example. We make the shortcut read:
     \SUNBELT\PLBWIN.87\CODE\PLBWIN.EXE FR000000

In cases like the FREDDY system, we wrote an ANSWER program which chains directly to FR000000. This way we can execute either the traditional way or we can leave out the program name and still arrive at FR000000.

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