PeopleCode Overview
PeopleCode is the proprietary language used by PeopleSoft applications. This chapter provides an overview of PeopleCode and discusses how to create PeopleCode programs.
These topics provide information to consider before you begin to use PeopleCode. In addition to the considerations presented in this section, you should take advantage of all PeopleSoft sources of information, including the installation guides, release notes, and PeopleBooks.
This section provides an overview of the product documentation available for the PeopleCode language, which is split into three documents:
PeopleTools: PeopleCode API Reference
This document contains information about certain application classes delivered with Oracle's PeopleTools, as well as specifics about each class's methods and properties.
PeopleTools: PeopleCode Developer's Guide
This document, the document that you are currently reading, provides conceptual information on the PeopleCode language, how PeopleCode interacts with the component buffer, how to develop PeopleCode programs, and a number of other specialized topics.
PeopleTools: PeopleCode Language Reference
This document contains information about PeopleCode built-in functions, meta-SQL, system variables, and meta-HTML.
The initial topics in this document, PeopleTools: PeopleCode Developer's Guide, provide conceptual information on the PeopleCode language, including:
PeopleCode resembles other programming languages. However, many aspects are unique to the language and the PeopleTools environment. To learn more about the language, see PeopleCode Language Structure.
PeopleCode is an object-oriented language. To learn about objects and how they're used in PeopleCode, see Classes and Objects.
The component buffer is the area in memory that stores data for the currently active component. Which fields are loaded into the component buffer, as well as how to access them, is covered in Understanding Component Buffer Structure and Contents.
The system uses a data buffer as well as the component buffer. The data buffer is used to store data added from sources other than the component, such as from a Application Engine program, an application message, and so on. For information about this buffer, see Understanding Data Buffer Access.
All PeopleCode is associated with a definition and an event. The events run in a particular order from the Component Processor. To learn more about the Component Processor and the standard event set, see Understanding the Component Processor.
You should take into account certain considerations when creating applications to be used in the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture. These include how to make your code more efficient when running on the internet, as well as considerations when using specific definitions. See PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture Processing Considerations.
There are restrictions on using some of the functions and methods in the PeopleCode language, as well as considerations for others, like using standalone rowsets and the OLE functions. These are covered in Functions.
PeopleCode has a tremendous amount of specialized functionality, such as:
Using the GenerateTree function to create a tree in your application.
Viewing, adding, and deleting files.