Book Image

Programming Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009

Book Image

Programming Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009

Overview of this book

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a well established Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, part of the Microsoft Dynamics family. Dynamics NAV is installed worldwide, with well over one million users. Version 2009 contains many major new features and structures, requiring even experienced Dynamics NAV developers to refresh their NAV development knowledge. Renowned for its challenging learning curve, Dynamics NAV is a complex piece of software with a unique design structure. For developers learning to modify or enhance Dynamics NAV for vital business purposes, the task can sometimes be intimidating. This book is an in-depth step-by-step guide to programming NAV, designed to ease you through the complexities of NAV application development. You will learn the skills and develop the confidence to tackle your own critical NAV applications. This book will act as your experienced NAV programming mentor, helping you to become productive as a NAV developer much more quickly. NAV development is quite complex, with a steep learning curve. This book makes it easy for you. From basic NAV terminology and concept definitions, through the essential building blocks of NAV data structure and objects, you will gain an understanding of the fundamental underlying concepts of NAV. You will learn practical details about NAV object construction and the tools available, including table, page, and report design. You will learn how to use NAV's tools to effectively navigate through the various features of objects, including properties, triggers, and C/AL code, and receive practical guidance on ways to develop and test in the unique NAV C/SIDE development environment. Extensive guidance on software design for NAV is provided along with tips for efficient design of new NAV applications or enhancing existing applications. With its comprehensive collection of NAV information and distillation of years of NAV development experience, this book is not only designed to help you learn, but to act as a reference as well.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Programming Microsoft® Dynamics™ NAV 2009
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
Foreword
Preface
Index

Chapter 7. Intermediate C/AL

If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got—Anon

You think you know when you can learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program—Alan Perlis

In the last chapter, we learned enough C/AL to create a basic operational set of code. In this chapter, we will learn more about C/AL functions and pick up a few good habits along the way. The C/AL functions represent a significant portion of knowledge that you will need on a day-to-day basis, as you are getting started as a professional NAV 2009 Developer.

Our goal is to understand more complex C/AL statement types, to be able to competently manage I/O, to create moderately complex program logic structures, and to understand data filtering and sorting as handled in NAV and C/AL. Since the functions and features in C/AL are designed for business and financial applications, you can do a surprising amount of work with a relatively small number...