The latest version of IBM's "Executive guide to the strategy and roadmap for the IBM i integrated operating environment for Power Systems" has been updated for IBM i 7.4.
This is a document you should consider sharing with senior management to help them realize that this platform, PowerSystems, and operating system, IBM i, is not the "same old 400". It is something way better.
You can download the document by clicking here.
One of the additions to IBM i with release 7.3 TR6 was a Db2 for i (SQL) table function that allows me to retrieve the contents of any spool file in my IBM i. I am sure that there are some people who are thinking "So what, I can do that with DSPSPLF"
Yes, I can view the contents of a spool file, but I cannot copy data from it. Why would I want to copy data from a spool file?
I am sure we all have reports in our ERP applications that the users would prefer as a spreadsheet. You are reluctant to change the ERP program as by doing so it will invalidate the support contract. Therefore, you copy the spool file to a physical file, and then parse the report's columns into fields, that are then written to the output file.
Using this new table function it becomes, in my opinion, a whole lot easier.
It has been several been several months since I last wrote a post about CL programming, therefore, I thought it would be a good excuse to share something I was using in a CL program I wrote a couple or so weeks ago. I am sure many have used the Check, %CHECK, and the Check reverse, %CHECKR build in functions, BiFs, in RPG to check a character string for the first place a certain character(s) is not. In the CL program I was writing I needed the same functionality.
IBM has been adding BiFs to CL that are similar to the ones to be found in RPG. Fortunately there are %CHECK and %CHECKR BiFs in CL too. The general format of them is similar to the RPG equivalent:
%CHECK(<test values> <variable> <starting position>) %CHECKR(<test values> <variable> <starting position>) |
I found I could use these BiFs in my CL in two ways:
I knew of the GET_JOB_INFO table function, but having played with it I did not see a reason why I would use it, I preferred the ACTIVE_JOB_INFO table function.
It was not until someone pointed out to me that I could see the current SQL statement being executed in a job that my interested with GET_JOB_INFO was piqued, especially as this would allow me to see what those data base server jobs are doing.
I decided to compare what GET_JOB_INFO would show me if I executed the following statement via two ways:
Today, Friday May 10, 2019, the new Technology Refresh for IBM i 7.3 is available!
When it was announced last month I went and picked what I thought my favorites would be. You can read about them here.
The PTFs for TR6 are:
At present I cannot find any mention if this PTF included the Db2 for i, RPG, etc enhancements too.
I will update this post as I find more information.
These are what i thought look to be the most interesting enhancements with TR6:
We have to wait until Friday June 21, 2019 for the the new release, IBM i 7.4 .
Someone brought to my attention a Db2 for i table function that parses the names of the tables and columns used in string passed to it. I have to admit I had not heard of this, therefore, I decided to test out what kinds of information it could return.
The PARSE_STATEMENT appears to have been introduced as part of the IBM i release 7.2 . It takes a string that contains a SQL statement and returns the columns, objects, etc. contained within. The basic syntax is:
SELECT * FROM TABLE(<sql string>)) AS A |
For example:
April 30 marked the end of IBM's support for one piece of IBM i software we have all used, Client Access. Its replacement is Access Client Solutions, ACS. It does everything that Client Access did, including 5250 emulation.
Why have I mentioned this?
I often get asked which 5250 emulator people should to attach to free IBM i partitions like RZKH's free IBM i partition PUB400.COM. The problem has been that the best emulators were not free.
ACS can be downloaded for free. And once installed its 5250 emulator can easily be activated to connect to servers like PUB400. Now you can have a quality 5250 emulator that does so much more than those others you have used in the past.
In the past couple of week I have been asked by several people how to condition whether a display file is shown in *DS3 (24 rows x 80 columns) or *DS4 (27 x 132) format. Rather than writing the same message to each one, I have decided to write this post so I can direct them to it.
These days I doubt if any of us IBM i developers are still using "dumb" workstations, we are all using PCs. In the settings of our 5250 emulator there is a configuration setting so we can set our emulated session to have a screen size of either 24x80 or 27x132. Personally I always configure my sessions to be 27x132.
You can see, and change, this setting depending on the emulator application you use.