Abstract Modifier in ax 2012

Abstract Modifier

An abstract class or method is the exact opposite of a final. The use of abstract classes is

a way of planning inheritance as it forces creating a subclass for using the class, as an

abstract class cannot be declared. This is often used in the standard package for super

classes to control that the super class is not declared by mistake. The class

SalesFormLetter which is used for creating documents such as sales confirmations and

sales invoices uses this practice. The class has an construct() method which should be

used, and to prevent the class being declared using new() SalesFormLetter is qualified

as abstract.

abstract CustAccount myAbstractMethod()

{

// The code in this method is never executed

#if.never

select firstonly custTable

where custTable;

#endif

}

Methods can be declared as abstract, but only if the class is abstract. An abstract method

must be overridden as an abstract method cannot have a code block. Abstract methods

contains only a parameter profile. You can however use the macro call #if.never to add

"code" to an abstract method. This will help clarify why this method must be overridden

in the subclass. You might wonder why you should not simply add comments in the

abstract method. The point is that code within the macro call is shown in color as with

any other code in the editor making it easier to differentiate comments and code. Note

that no validation is done on code written in the #if.never macro so anything could be

written. It is optional to qualify methods of an abstract class as abstract. For this reason

you will still be able to add variables in the ClassDeclaration of an abstract class..

The access modifiers protected can be use with abstract methods. An abstract method

cannot be static, as the static methods only exist in the super class