Handling pipe separated data into a Db2 file

It started with a question:

If my file.txt is pipe filed separated, how can I make the records fall into the physical file to the corresponding fields.

A good question. Most of the time my incoming files are comma separated. The same methods I would use for those will work for pipe separated files too.

First I need a file with pipe separators. I made a copy of some of the columns from my PERSON DDL table to an output file in QTEMP:

01 CREATE TABLE QTEMP.OUTFILE AS 02 (SELECT PID,LNAME,FNAME FROM PERSON) 03 WITH DATA

RPGPGM.COM-unity on the West Coast

I was at OCEAN’s TechCon26 conference earlier this month, and I was able to enroll a few more people into the RPGPGM.COM-unity. You can see who these people are here.

If you see me at an IBM i event feel free to introduce yourself to me, ask for your own RPGPGM.COM-unity ribbon, and you will become part of this community. All I ask in return is a photograph of you with it.

If you would like to learn more about the RPGPGM.COM-unity click here.

It is now so easy to view CVE using SQL

Before I start describing how to use this new SQL Table Function, I need to explain what CVE are.

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures, CVE, are standardized, publicly identified cybersecurity flaws in software or firmware. When IBM, or a researcher, find a flaw in IBM i, or related software, it is given a unique id. These ids are cataloged globally by the MITRE Corporation, and published with their severity and impacts.

You can learn more about CVE on IBM's "What is CVE?" page.

I cannot find a CL command that allows me to view CVE details. I would have to search for a particular CVE using the IBM Product Security Central page.

With the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.6 TR2 and 7.5 TR8, is a new SQL Table Function that allows me view, and search, all of CVE from my IBM i partition.

The CVE_INFO Table Function is found in the library SYSTOOL, it has one parameter the IBM i release number. I went through and checked for each release to find that V5R3 is the earliest there are results for:

First Technology Refreshes of 2026 released today

The PTFs for the Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.6 TR2 and 7.5 TR8, announced two weeks ago are released today.

When you ask your Sys Admin to download and apply the PTFs don't forget to tell them that they need to download the latest PTFs for Database (Db2) and RPG too.

I am looking forward to "playing" with all the new and enhanced features added, and will be writing about them here, on RPGPGM.COM.

Program to alert when elapsed CPU percentage becomes too high

When I published my article about Program to alert when jobs' CPU percentage becomes too high someone messaged me asking could I think of something that would do the same when the total CPU exceeded a certain percentage. The answer is, of course, "Yes".

Before I create a program we need to consider the whether the partition that the program will be run on is "capped" or "uncapped". What does that mean?

When a partition is capped it cannot use more than its allocated processing units, in other words it can never exceed 100% CPU usage.

While an uncapped partition has its base entitlement of the processing units, but can borrow unused processing power from the other partitions if available. This means that its CPU usage can exceed 100% of the partition's resources.

This means that 90% CPU utilization could be more concerning on a capped than an uncapped. Keep this in mind when you look at my example program.

I always use ACS's Run SQL Scripts, RSS, to develop the SQL statements I will be including in a RPG program. I can get the elapsed CPU percentage from the SYSTEM_STATUS SQL table function:

New model of IBM Power 11 announced

Along with the announcement of the latest Technology Refreshes came another announcement for the smallest of the IBM Power11 servers, S1112.

I am not a hardware geek, more of a software one, but having read the announcement document I think it is something worth reporting upon.

S1112 is in the P05 software tier that can run IBM i AIX, Linux, or hybrid workloads on one server.

It comes in two configuations:

First TR of 2026

The deferred first Technology Refreshes of 2026 PTFs, IBM i 7.6 TR2 and 7.5 TR8, have been announced.

The first thing I do when any new TR announcement is made is to check out what enhancements have been made to Db2 for i (SQL) and RPG. Do note that there are a number of changes and additions made to IBM i 7.6 that have not been made to 7.5.

The SQL that have caught my eye are:

Spring 2026 Performance Guide available

A new version of IBM's "IBM i on Power – Performance FAQ" was published at the beginning of this month, and is available for download.

The guide provides us with tips on how to measure, and improve, the performance of your IBM Power server, IBM i partitions, Db2 database, and programs that run within it.

You will find the document here.

I always download it and read the passages I feel are relevant to my situation. I recommend you do the same.

More information regarding IBM Bob Premium Package

IBM made an announcement yesterday, Thursday July 9, with more information about the new IBM Bob Premium Package for i. This includes some more information about the additions to it.

I am not going to repeat what is says. Just provide you with the link to it here.

Using SQL to retrieve information from the internet

There are many different web sites that offer information that would be useful to consume in IBM i. I have seen several examples of doing this, and I thought I would show my example, which I think, shows how simple it can be.

In my example I want to retrieve the share prices for the three biggest technology companies in the city I live in:

• Dell, stock symbol: DELL
• IBM, symbol: IBM
• Tesla, symbol: TSLA

Retrieving the value of a column from a previous row

I was sent a copy of a job log from weeks ago, and had been asked to identify which parts of the job had run the longest. Fortunately, the spool file of the job log was still available so I could do some SQL magic to extract useful information from it. The first thing I want to do is to determine is how long each program or command took. I can extract the timestamp from the spool file, but I need to be able to retrieve the timestamp for the previous entry too. How can I retrieve that information for the previous entry?

After a bit of searching I found a SQL function that would allow me to do this. Rather than go straight into showing what I did with the joblog spool file, I am going to start with a simpler example. I have a DDL table, TESTTABLE, that has a decimal column, TEST_NUMBER, and nine rows of data. I can show the data using the following SQL statement:

01 SELECT TEST_NUMBER 02 FROM TESTTABLE

Which returns:

Migrate While Active Redbook

Migrate While Active, MWA, is one of the more exciting features recently introduced for IBM Power hardware and the IBM i operating system. It is tool that helps me to move IBM i workloads to new servers, data centers, or the cloud with near-zero downtime.

Basically MWA is performed in three steps:

1. Background Copy: A copy of the partition is made, while the source partition is fully online and active.
2. Data Sync: It constantly synchronizes all data changes from the live system to the copy.
3. Cutover: Once both match, I make the switch to the new partition.

This results in almost no interruption in service.