ORCA is software for accessing the PowerBuilder Library Manager functions that PowerBuilder uses in the Library painter. A program (very often a C program) can use ORCA to do the same kinds of object and library management tasks that the Library painter interface provides.
History of ORCA
ORCA was created for CASE tool vendors as part of the CODE (Client/Server Open Development Environment) program. CASE tools needed programmatic access to PowerBuilder libraries to create and modify PowerBuilder objects based on an application design.
Typical ORCA programs
Applications use ORCA to manipulate PowerBuilder objects. They might:
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Write object source code and then use ORCA functions to place that object source in a PBL
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Extract objects from libraries using ORCA functions, modify the object source, and use ORCA again to put the objects back in the libraries
Sample ORCA applications
ORCA has been used for many types of tools that work with PowerBuilder, such as:
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OrcaScript utility
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CASE tools
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Class libraries
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Documentation tools
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Application management tools
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Utilities that might, for example, search for text and replace it throughout a library or display a tree view of objects in a library
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Interfaces for source control systems that PowerBuilder does not support directly
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Utilities to rebuild PowerBuilder targets from source-controlled objects
