About PBNI

PBNI is a standard programming interface that enables developers to extend the functionality of PowerBuilder. Using PBNI, you can create extensions to PowerBuilder—nonvisual, visual, and marshaler extensions—and embed the PowerBuilder virtual machine (PBVM) into C++ applications. Through the Java Native Interface (JNI) and PBNI, Java applications can also communicate with the PBVM.

Use with .NET targets

You can use the built-in Web services client extension (pbwsclient170.pbx) in applications that you plan to deploy to .NET as a PowerBuilder .NET Windows Forms application. You cannot use any other PBNI extensions in a .NET target.

Code samples

This documentation contains two complete but very simple examples that illustrate some basic principles of using the PowerBuilder Native Interface (PBNI): "Nonvisual extension example" and "Creating a PowerBuilder object to be called from C++". For more real-world examples, see the PBNI section of the PowerBuilder Code Samples Web site .

The following diagram illustrates the two–way communication, with both PowerBuilder extensions and external applications, that PBNI provides for the PBVM. As the diagram shows, a PowerBuilder extension communicates with the PBVM through the IPB_Session interface, and the PBVM communicates with the extension through an interface derived from IPBX_UserObject.

C++ and Java extensions communicate with the PBVM through the IPB_VM and IPB_Session interfaces.

Figure 1-1: Interaction between the PBVM and external applications and extensions