Before an application can be recognized by ESL, you must define the application with the application environment declaration.  We recommend that this declaration appear at the top of the ESL program that you are using.  The form of the application declaration is the same whether the application is local or remote.

The name that you provide in the application declaration is a logical name and is not necessarily the name by which the operating system recognizes the program.  You can specify any name that you wish.  For example, suppose you are communicating with a database application program named DN532.EXE.  Because ESL does not recognize names containing periods, you can specify a more recognizable name, as in the following:

application Database

Then, when you start the application program, you provide a start statement, which establishes the connection between the ESL name, Database, and the operating system name, DN532.EXE.  For example:

response to start

   start local Database "DN532.EXE"

Once an application program has been defined, you refer to it throughout your ESL program by using the name provided in the application declaration; for example:

response to line from Database

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