PowerBuilder - Extracting Source from PBL Files

In order to perform the conversion of the PowerBuilder application first you need to extract the script files of which each PowerBuilder Library (PBL) file consist. These are the files containing the definition of each object used in the application. There is two ways to do this task using tool developed by our team or do ut manually from PowerBuilder.

• Download sources for PBExtractor from the download page and unzip it.
• Run PowerBuilder.
• Create workspace with any name(on the picture below, workspace with the name “new”).

• Create target with name “extrlib”. PBT and library files will be created automatically with the same name.

• Import all downloaded files, except sra file, into created target.

• Open extrlib file with menu option “Edit Source”. Replace content of the opened file with content of the downloaded file, except first row.

• Make Full Build.

1. Run PBExtractor
2. Specify path to PBT file in first text box “Path to PBT file :”. Should be specified existing pbt file.
3. Specify folder where extracted files should be placed in second text box “Folder for extracted files :”. Path should ended with “\” and should be specified existing directory.
4. (Optional) Specify encoding that you want. By default used UTF8.
5. Press button “Extract…”

For this purpose please go to the “Tools” menu and run the “Library Painter” as it is specified in the screen-shot below:

In the opened “Library Painter” window please browse to one of the pbl files from your PowerBuilder project, select all the objects in the left-hand pane, click the right mouse button on the selected objects and choose “Export” in the menu, like in the picture below:

After that you will be prompted to specify the location of each object exported, which definition will be stored in its own file (SRD, SRU, SRW, SRF & etc.) in the specified location.

The same set of actions needed to be performed for each PBL file in the project to acquire the definitions of all the objects in the project.

SQLWays Product Page - PowerBuilder Conversion Free Evaluation