Audit Journal Data Mart

This is something that caught my attention when the latest Technology Refreshes were announced: the ability to create a database of journal entry types entries. I had been doing something similar using the CREATE TABLE SQL statement and various of the Audit journal entry services, AUDIT_JOURNAL_xx. But these additions added functionality that makes it easier for me to extract the journal entries from the System Audit Journal, QAUDJRN.

The two new additions are:

1. MANAGE_AUDIT_JOURNAL_DATA_MART:  SQL procedure that uses the various AUDIT_JOURNAL_xx to create an output table.
2. AUDIT_JOURNAL_DATA_MART_INFO:  SQL View that displays information about all the files created with the MANAGE_AUDIT_JOURNAL_DATA_MART SQL procedure.

RPG Cafe updated with Fall 2024 enhancements

The RPG Cafe has been updated with the four changes that will be coming in the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR5 and 7.4 TR11.

These enhancements are:

• In preparation for the switch to the "1970" rule for six long dates, with two digit years, there will be a compile option when used allows you identify where a two digit year is used in the program or module, see here for more details.
   
• The ability to use the %PROC BiF in the ON-EXIT section of a procedure. Learn more here.
   
• Two new BiFs, %HIVAL and %LOVAL that will return the largest or smallest possible value that can be held in a variable. The details are here.

I consider these three great additions to the modern RPG language.

NHMUG calls it a day

I am always saddened to learn that an IBM i Local User Group, LUG, stops functioning.

Yesterday, I learned the New Hampshire Midrange User Group, NHMUG, announced on their website that they were disbanding. You can read their announcement here.

This just leaves one IBM i user-related organization in the New England region, the Northeast Users Groups Conference. NEUGC holds an annual conference, see their website for details of the 2025 conference.

If you have any updates for any other IBM i related LUG please let me know via the Contact form on the right.

For a list of all the active IBM i User Groups I have found check out the user groups page.

Fall 2024 TRs announced

The Fall Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.5, TR5, and 7.4, TR11, were announced this morning.

Having a quick glance at the announcement documentation from IBM it would appear that the two have the identical changes:

• Db2 of i (SQL)
  • 14 enhancements
  • 9 new additions
• RPG
  • 3 new additions

Audit Journal Entry Services

I have managed to persuade the admins of the server I use to develop the code for these posts upon to give me access to the Audit Journal, QAUDJRN, this gives me the opportunity to write about several enhancements that have made to Db2 for i that makes getting information from QAUDJRN.

Over the past few releases and Technology Refreshes IBM has given us many Audit Journal Services. As QAUDJRN contains many different types of journal entries IBM has given us a specific Audit Journal Service for just about every journal entry type.

All of Audit Journal Services are called: AUDIT_JOURNAL_xx, where xx is the journal entry type. As of IBM i 7.5 TR4/IBM i 7.4 TR10 there are 41 of these Audit Journal Entry Services, out of a total of 76. That is 54% of all journal entry types covered. I do not know if the plan is to cover all of the job entry types, or not.

October's presentations

This month I have three events I am involved with.

On Monday October 7 I will be talking to COMMON's N2i in a presentation called "Getting Started with Modern RPG Arrays and BiFs". As this is for the N2i it is designed to be at a suitable level for people new to the IBM i platform.

Thre presentation is free, and you can register at N2i website here.

I am talking with the West Michigan IBM i User Group on Tuesday October 15 about "Maximizing the benefits of embedding SQL in your RPG code". The presentation will start at 8:00 AM (ET).

WMSUG updated their website, therefore, you can learn more and register for this event here.

I am on my travels again visiting my friends for Common Denmark's annual conference, on Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 October. You can learn more about, and register, for the conference here.

I hope to see you there. And if you are attending and you see me, please introduce yourself and say "Hej".

Copy source members to the IFS

Someone asked me how I would write a program to copy all of the members in source files to separate files in the IFS, where they could then me imported into a GiT. I can see a program like this being more useful overtime as more people move from using source files to using a GiT repository.

In this example I will be copying all the source members from the source file DEVSRC in the library MYLIB to the IFS directory /home/MyFolder. The files in the IFS would all be named in the following way: source_member_name.source_member_type, for example: TESTRPG.RPGLE

My first attempt at creating a program to do this was to use RPG. I was going to use the CPYTOIMPF command within the QCMDEXC Scalar function. Alas, several hours of creating program I received the following message when running the RPG program for the first time:

New View lists all file members

If I wanted to get a list of members in a file with SQL I always had to work with the SYSPARTITIONSTAT View, which was not the purpose it was designed for. In the latest latest Technology Refreshes a new View has been added that is designed for information about members, SYSMEMBERSTAT.

The new SYSMEMBERSTAT View is in the library QSYS2 and contains all the columns I could want to know about members in a file.

I always recommend if this is the first time you are using a View you should look at all of the columns and determine, for yourself, which ones are important. The following statement displays all the columns in SYSMEMBERSTAT:

Fortra IBM i Marketplace Survey

Fortra, formerly known as HelpSystems, has opened their annual IBM i marketplace survey.

This is the eleventh-year they have had the survey. It provides a useful insight to what the IBM i community is up to, and what are their concerns.

The survey opened last Friday, and will close on October 31. The results will be published in January 2025.

I encourage you to take part. I did so on Friday.

You can get to the survey using the link here.

Improvements to the SQL scalar function that sends email

As part of the latest Technology Refreshes a number of improvements have been added to the SEND_EMAIL scalar function.

What are these:

• New parameters for carbon copy (CC) and blind carbon copy (BCC)
• Up to twenty email addresses in the email, cc email, and bbc email parameters
• Up to ten attachments from the IFS can be attached to the email

All of which are useful additions to SEND_EMAIL.

Let me jump right to giving an example of using more than one email address and the new cc and bbc email parameters:

IBM i: Integrate and innovate

IBM published a document last month, August 2024, called "IBM i: Integrate and innovate", with the subtitle "An executive guide to the strategy and roadmap for the IBM I integrated operating environment for IBM Power servers". I think it is great that IBM publishes documents like this. I read them all, and share them with you too.

It is a 31 page document that IMHO you should share with your colleagues, managers, and executives. I will be doing so myself today.

The document can be reached on the IBM website by clicking on the link here.

Extra columns in a Select statement but not in the group by

I struggled with the title of this post to make it something that explains the content, without it being too long. I am not limited for length in the body of this post so I can explain in more detail my scenario: I want to have columns that are listed in my results for a Select statement that are not in the GROUP BY clause.

This is something that has been made easier with a new Scalar function added in the latest round of Technology Refreshes. First let me give you examples of my scenario.

What I am going to do is to take use my PERSON DDL Table and make a count of the places of birth of the people. As these are people from the British Isles, I will also include the columns for the county and the country (England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, or Wales) from a second Table, TOWN.

Retrieving Printer File information using SQL

This is one of the additions that came as part of last round of Technology Refreshes that I was excited about. Previously If I need to get information about printer files I would either have to use an API or the DSPFD command. Now I have an easy way to get information about any printer file using a SQL View.

The new SQL View is called PRINTER_FILE_INFO and is found in the SYSTOOLS library.

I always recommend that you run the run the SQL statement to see all of the columns in the SQL View for yourself. That way you can make your determination which columns you find useful to your situation. You can do that with the following statement. I have a limit of returning ten results as I found that if you want to return all the results from the View it may take some time to do so.

Using SQL to create, update, and get from Environmental Variables

Within the latest database PTFs that came as part of the last Technology Refresh were a couple of new Scalar functions that can be used to do things with Environmental Variables. They are named after the APIs that can be used to put and get information from the Environmental Variables. These new SQL Scalar functions are:

• PUTENV:  Creates or changes the Environmental Variable. Equivalent of the following commands: ADDENVVAR and CHGENVVAR, and the putenv API
• GETENV:  Retrieves the value from the Environmental Variable. Equivalent of the getenv API

Using file name from data area for reading IFS file

The idea of this post came from a question I was asked. The questioner had a scenario where the name of an IFS file they needed read is in a data structure. They were unable to work out how to use the value from the data structure as the path name to read of the IFS file.

Let me start using ACS's "Run SQL Scripts", RSS, tool.

Before I can read a file in the IFS I need to create it. I can use the IFS_WRITE SQL procedure to do so:

01 CALL QSYS2.IFS_WRITE('/home/MyDirectory/test.txt', 02 'First line', 03 END_OF_LINE => 'CRLF')

Finding logical files that exist in a different library to the physical

I am sure I am not the only person who wants any logical files in the same library as the physical file they are created over. I do realize that join logical files and SQL views can be built over files in different libraries, and they have always been handled in a case-by-case basis.

My senior System Administrator stumbled across a number of logical files which were in a different to their physical files, and wondered how many more there may be?

SQL to rescue and with a simple SQL statement I can give her that information.

Let me explain the scenario I will be using in these examples. I have a physical file, TESTFILE that exists in the library MYLIB. I built three logical files over it, each one was in a different library:

1. Logical file: TESTFILE1 in the library MYLIB
2. TESTFILE1 in the library QTEMP
3. TESTFILE1 in the library MYLIB2

I can display the database relationship between the physical file and these objects by using the Display Database Relations command, DSPDBR:

Updates to the SYSDISKSTAT View and Table Functions

I have been remiss in writing about the updates in the past few Technology Refreshes to the SYSDISKSTAT View and Table function. Both the View and Table function return information regarding the spinning disk and solid-state drives, SSD, on your partition(s). While, IMHO, they can be used for different purposes, they do contain the same columns.

The columns I have identified that have been added since my previous post are:

• HARDWARE_STATUS:  The status of the "disk" unit. There are many different statuses, refer to the link at the bottom of this post to the IBM Documentation for what they all are
• IS_ZERO:  Returns whether all the pages on the disk unit are zero
• HOST_WWPN:  Hexadecimal decimal string to represent the resource's host world wide port name
• REMOTE_WWPN:  Hexadecimal decimal string to represent the resource's remote world wide port name
• UNIT_NVME:  Whether this is a NVMe unit. 1 = It is, 0 = It is not

New version of ACS, 1.1.9.6, out now

I need to thank Shaker Steven again for bringing to my attention that a new version of IBM's Access Client Solutions, ACS, is now available.

When I opened ACS this morning the following window popped up informing me of there was a new release available:

You can either install the new version, 1.1.9.6, by clicking on the "Download Update…" button on the window displayed above. Or you can go IBM's ACS website, http://ibm.biz/IBMi_ACS (the URL is case sensitive), and download it from the website.

Don't worry if you don't have an IBMid, you can create one in a couple of minutes.

Confirm your agreement with IBM's license.

You will then be presented with the "IBM i Access Client Solutions" page. The download for ACS's latest version is the first download.

Deleting objects in the IFS with a SQL scalar function

This post is a two-for-one where I will explain how two of the additions that came in the latest Technology Refreshes go together.

The first is a new scalar function IFS_UNLINK, which is found in the SYSTOOLS library, that deletes IFS objects that are passed to it as a parameter. Behind the scenes it calls the unlink() C API. The scalar function returns the integer value that is returned by the C API. If it completed successfully, IFS_UNLINK returns a value of zero. If there was an error the scalar function returns an errno value.

The second addition, ERRNO_INFO, which is also found in the SYSTOOLS library, is a Table function that will return the description of the errno passed to it.

The easiest way I know to be able to show you how it works is to show an example of using it.

Comparing differences between objects in two IFS directories

While it has been possible to compare the contents of two directories in the IFS it has not been, well, simple. A new addition to Db2 for i, SQL, in the latest round of Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR4 and IBM i 7.4 TR10. Makes it a whole lot, well, easier.

The new SQL Table function, COMPARE_IFS uses the output from the Table functions IFS_OBJECT_STATISTICS and IFS_OBJECT_PRIVILEGES to compare the objects in two IFS directories to one another. It will only check the following object types:

• Character special files, *CHRSF
• Directories, *DIR
• Name pipes, *FIFO
• Local sockets, *SOCKET
• Stream files, *STMF
• Symbolic links, *SYMLNK

I created two subfolders within my home directory, /home/MyDir, called subdir1 and subdir2. I uploaded some files into each one. Some were the same files, others were different files, and some files had the same names but different contents.

RPGPGM.COM-unity in So Cal

Last week I was at OCEAN's TechCon2024 conference, in southern California, and I took the opportunity to hand out some more of the RPGPGM.COM-unity ribbons.

What is the RPGPGM.COM-unity? You will have to click on this link to learn what it means, and who has ribbons.

Now possible to build SQL Alias over last member

The SQL Create Alias statement was enhanced in the latest round of Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR4 and IBM i 7.4 TR10. Previously when you created a SQL Alias you had to give a specific member in the DDS Physical file. Now I can use *LAST to denote the most recent member in the Physical file, and what is really cool is if I add another member to the file the Alias will now use that member!

This will be clearer when I show my examples.

First I need a DDS physical file. I called this one MULTIMBR, and it is found in my library MYLIB.

A R RMULTIMBR A FIELD 100A

I compiled the above DDS Physical file with the following command:

01 CRTPF FILE(MYLIB/MULTIMBR) SRCFILE(MYLIB/DEVSRC) MAXMBRS(*NOMAX)

List all object types using SQL

Have you ever wondered how many different types of objects there in IBM i? And what the types of objects are?

The latest Technology Refreshes give us a SQL View that contains that information, and we can query it to answer those questions.

The SQL View is called SYSTEM_OBJECT_TYPES, and it is found in the QSYS2 library. It has three columns:

1. OBJECT_TYPE:  Object type
2. TEXT_DESCRIPTION:  Description of what the object type is
3. CATEGORY:  There are two categories:
   IFS - object is in the IFS
   LIBRARY - object resides in a library (not an IFS object)

New functionality added to RPG's SND-MSG op code

Two years ago the Send Message, SND-MSG, operation code was added to RPG. In the latest round of Technology Refreshes a number of new options have been added to SND-MSG and the Target, %TARGET, built in function.

To oversimplify it SND_MSG consists to three parts:

1. Type of message to send
2. Message text or variable
3. The target for the message, which is the %TARGET built in function, BiF. This is optional

For example:

SND-MSG *INFO 'Message text goes here' %TARGET(*SELF)

Deleting old device definitions

Last month I wrote about a way to list all of the unused virtual devices in your partition. In response to the article I received a question: "Is there a way to then delete these devices, other than manually going through? One system I just did has over 5,000 devices...."

The answer, of course, is yes there is. Before I give my final result let me go through the steps I did to create a SQL script to delete the unused virtual devices.

I can identify the virtual devices using the Object Statistics SQL Table function. I do not want to repeat myself. For the details read my previous article.

I decide to create a Common Table Expression, CTE, as it was just "neater". In the first part of the statement I would create a virtual table of all the eligible virtual devices, and in the second I would delete them. To start with I just want to make sure I gather the data I expected, therefore, my first statement did not do any deleting.

Constant keyword added to RPG definitions

As part of the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10, comes an addition to the variable and data structure definitions. It is now possible to use the constant keyword as part of those definitions to protect them from being changed.

Why would I want to do that?

There are times I want to use a variable, rather than a constant. It might be to contain a date. I would not want this to be changed, either on purpose or by accident.

Below is an example:

01 **free 02 dcl-s StartDate date inz(*sys) const ; 03 dsply StartDate ; 04 StartDate = d'2024-07-04' ;

Create an Excel spreadsheet from a CL program

It has been possible to create a Microsoft compatible Excel spreadsheet using SQL since the last Technology Refreshes. In my example I demonstrated how you could do this within a RPG program.

A few months have passed and I have been asked how to do the same within a CL program. With a minor change I will show it is possible.

Let me start by showing the code for this program:

RPGPGM.COM-unity ribbons in the UK

Last week I was at i-UG's i-Power2024 conference, in the United Kingdom. This gave me another opportunity to hand out some RPGPGM.COM-unity ribbons.

What is the RPGPGM.COM-unity? You will have to click on this link to learn what it means, and see who I gave ribbons to.

Happy birthday to IBM i

Today marks the 36th anniversary of the launch of the AS/400 server and the OS/400 operating system on June 21, 1988.

Over this time the server has evolved, with the change from CISC to RISC chips and the improvements in chip technology, to become the IBM Power server. The operating system has been rewritten several times to include the latest evolving technologies to become IBM i, which is not the only operating system that can run on a IBM Power server.

What we have today is not AS/400 and OS/400, even though everything we could with them we can do today with the modern server and operating system.

I think I did a good job describing this history last year, for the 35th anniversary. If you are interested in learning more what AS/400 was, and what it has become, read the story here.

Happy birthday IBM Power and IBM i! May you have many more!

Using SQL table function to lookup SQL codes

It has always been a bit of a bind to look up what a SQL codes means, to be able to discover what error or warning Db2 for i is giving me for a SQL statement I have executed. There is a message file, QSQLMSG, where I can convert the SQL code into a message id and then look in the message file for the message texts:

SQL code -501 = Message id SQL0501 DSPMSGD RANGE(SQL0501) MSGF(QSQLMSG)

With the technology refreshes for IBM i 7.5 TR3 and 7.4 TR9 comes a table function where I can pass it the SQL code, and the results include all the information I desire:

• Message id
• Message text
• Second level message text

New Technology Refreshes available today

Today the PTFs for the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10, become available.

There are three sets of PTFs you need to download:

• General PTFs for the Technology Refresh
• Database PTFs (SQL)
• RPG PTFs

The numbers for these PTFs are different for the two releases. These are the numbers I have found so far:

	IBM i 7.5 TR4	IBM i 7.4 TR10
General TR PTFs
Database PTFs	SF99950   7	SF99704   28
RPG PTFs	5770WDS SJ00650 TGTRLS(V7R4M0): 5770WDS SJ00653	5770WDS SJ00635

I cannot wait to start trying all the new features and functions. When I do, I will write about them on this website.

Eleven years and still going

Another year has passed, and this blog is now eleven years old. It is still a labor of love, and I want to continue to bring you the news about IBM i and IBM Power, and the best examples of using IBM i. I am grateful to all of you for visiting this site, and especially to you who have reached out to me with their feedback and encouragement.

On the personal side I was grateful to be recognized by IBM as an IBM Champion for Power for the fourth year.

List unused virtual devices

This was a first: I was asked by the auditors for a list of virtual devices that had not been used in the past six months. In all my years of dealing with auditors this was the first time I had been asked this question.

It is not a big deal to get this information. All virtual devices are just device descriptions, object type '*DEVD', with the object attribute of 'DSPVRT'. As they are objects I can get this information from the SQL Table function OBJECT_STATISTICS.

What columns of data am I interested in?

• Object's attribute
• Object's name
• The date the object was created
• The date the object was last used
• Object's description

My SQL statement to retrieve the data the auditors are interested in would be:

Withdrawal of support for some development tools

In an announcement made last month, May 2024, IBM announced the withdrawal of a number of their products and tools for IBM power and IBM i, effective April 30, 2025.

Included are the following IBM Rational Development Studio for i Application Development Toolset tools:

• Report Layout Utility (RLU)
• Screen Design Aid (SDA)
• File Compare and Merge Utility (FCMU)
• Advanced Printer Function (APF)
• Character Generator Utility (CGU)
• Data File Utility (DFU)

You can read the announcement here.

I have reached out to an IBM Business Partner and asked them does this mean that these tools will still work, just they we will no longer get support for issues with them. When I receive a reply from them I will post it here.

I don't think that IBM will stop these tools from working. SEU has been off support for years, but you can still use it (if you must).

Getting the message for the SQL code quickly

All of us who use SQL have encountered errors, and when we do a SQL code is returned. This then leaves us trying to find the text associated with the SQL code to understand what had happened.

If this is in a RPG program I always recommend that you use GET DIAGNOTISTICS, which will return all you wanted to know about the message and a whole lot more too. If I am quickly writing a RPG program that will only be used one, or maybe twice, or a CL program and I get a SQL code I need to look it up to understand what happened.

There are two types of SQL codes:

1. Those less than zero: Errors
2. Those greater than zero: Warnings

All SQL codes have an equivalent IBM i message id. Basically it is 'SQL' followed by the SQL code. For example, SQL code -423 becomes message id SQL0423.

All message ids' information in IBM i are held in message files. SQL messages have their own message file QSQLMSG in the library QSYS.

If I wanted to look up the message for SQL code -423, message id SQL0423, I could use the Display Message Description command,DSPMSGD:

RPGPGM.COM-unity ribbons

Last week at COMMON Americas PowerUp2024 conference I handed some special ribbons to people. You can see who I did here.

What does this mean? You will have to click on the above link to learn.

Apologies to those people I gave ribbons too that I did not have time to photograph. If you are one of those people it is not too late. Take a photograph of yourself posing with your conference badge and RPGPGM.COM-unity ribbon, like the people in the photographs, and send it to me. I will add you to the page. My email address is RPGPGM.COM@GMAIL.COM

Extract number out of character column and use it to update another column

A friend told me about the old database he had to work with. There was one file with a field that contained two pieces of information. Any leading characters, A – Z, meant one thing and the numbers within it meant something else. Unfortunately there could be any number of leading characters, the numbers could be three of four long, and there could be characters at the end. The examples he shared with me were:

• 'A123B'
• 'ABC123'
• 'AB4679'
• 'BC0123D'

His plan was to add a new numeric field to the file, and update it with the numbers extracted from this original field.

"What would be a simple way to do this with SQL?" he asked.

Retrieving file's keys with SQL, having to use DSPFD

In my last post I wrote about how to list a file's key fields using the file QADBKATR to retrieve the key fields' information from.

I mentioned that there may be times that you are not authorized to use the QADBKATR file. If you are not authorized how else can you get the key fields? And present them as I did in the previous example?

I have to fall back and use the Display File Description command, DSPFD, using the Access Path value in the "Type of information" parameter:

DSPFD FILE(MYLIB/TESTFILE) TYPE(*ACCPTH)

New IBM Power 10 model for AI

On Tuesday, May 7 2024, IBM announced a new model IBM Power 10, S1012, which caught my eye. It is smaller than the other IBM Power rack mounted servers, and it also comes in a cool looking tower version too.

The following statements in the announcement caught my eye:

• "This 1-socket, half-wide Power10 processor-based system delivers up to 3X more performance per core versus Power S812"
   
• "delivers the lowest entry price point in the Power port[f]olio to run core workloads for small and medium-sized organizations"
   
• "provides clients the flexibility to run AI inferencing workloads in remote office and back office (ROBO) locations outside mainstream datacenter facilities"
   

Retrieving file's keys with SQL

I was asked how I could present the following information in an "easy to use" manner for all of the "files" in a library:

• Library name
• File name, or Table, Index, etc. name
• Type of file
• When it was last used
• File's key fields

The easiest way to get this information is using SQL. The first three pieces of information can be retrieved from the SYSFILES View. The last used information can come from the OBJECT_STATISTICS Table function. Getting the file's key fields is not in any of the usual SQL Views about fields/columns or files/tables.

There is a file that contains the keys for all files: QADBKATR. This is a logical file built over the file QADBKFLD. On all the IBM i partitions I use for testing this posts I found that I am not authorized to the physical file on any, and I am authorized to the logical file on all but one. Therefore, my examples will use QADBKATR.

Spring 2024 TRs announced

Today, at a later time than previous announcements, a new set of Technology Refreshes were announced by IBM for the currently supported releases of IBM i. These are IBM i TR4 and IBM i 7.4 TR10.

Doing a quick count of what is new and enhanced I find the following:

• RPG
  • 2 enhancements
• Db2 for i (SQL)
  • 17 additions
  • 9 enhancements

You can read all about them on these pages on IBM's websites:

Converting fetched columns into an array

Coming up with a meaningful title for this post proved harder than normal. I was asked a question about how to fetch data, using a SQL Cursor, and convert some of the fetched columns into an array. The questioner had tried various approaches, but was always receiving an error in the SQL pre-compile step of his program.

The file in question contained 35 fields he was interested in. The record would be for an account, by year and month, 31 balance fields one for every day of the month (yes, I know not all months have 31 days), and finally a total monthly change balance. The questioner wanted to put all of the 31 day fields into one array.

Let me start with my version of his file, that I called TESTFILE:

More about getting information about SQL Views

Several years ago I wrote a post about the Db2 for i (SQL) Views about Views:

• SYSVIEWS:  Information about Views themselves
• SYSVIEWDEP:  Information about Views' dependencies

One of the things I talk about during presentations I give to Local User Groups, LUG, is the use of SQL Views and how they make my programming simpler. Therefore, I wanted to revisit these two Views and explain how they help me learn more about the Views in the partitions I use.

Before I can show what kinds of information I can get from SYSVIEWS and SYSVIEWSDEP I am going to need some Views to play with.

I am going to join a DDS file, TESTFILE, and a DDL table, TESTTABLE to create my first View. While it is not essential to know what the file and table look like I am just going to include their source code below.

First TESTFILE:

Generate spreadsheet with SQL in batch job

When I wrote about the Db2 for i, or SQL, scalar function to create a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in the IFS my example program ran interactively. I recently received a message asking the following: "good stuff even though I started to use it, it has some limitations so far: doesn't work with QTEMP files. Am I right?"

I submitted my example program to batch and found that the expected spreadsheet was not generated. Looking in the job's job log I could see several messages related to files I created in QTEMP not being found. It would appear that the Java called by the GENERATE_SPREADSHEET submits a job to batch with the type BATCHI.

If I should not use files in QTEMP then I need a Standard Output file, STDOUT, in another library. I chose to create it in QGPL, but it could be in any library that is in the users' library list. As STDOUT is a source file I create it with the following:

CRTSRCPF FILE(QGPL/STDOUT) RCDLEN(266) + TEXT('Standard output file')

End to free format directive

What I call totally free RPG and what IBM calls modern RPG has been around for nine years. This type of RPG always needs the **FREE directive starting in the first position of the source line. And what follows is the free form RPG, where the source line can start in any position.

...+... 1 ...+... 2 ...+... 3 ...+... 4 ...+... 5 ...+... 6 ...+... 7 ...+... 8 01 **free 02 dcl-s Statement1 varchar(100) inz('Entered in free format RPG') ;

Marc Raynor informed me of another directive that "ends" the free format RPG, **END-FREE. After that directive all valid RPG must be entered in the sixth position for fixed format code, and later for the not completely free format code.

Having been told this I had to try it:

ACS 1.1.9.5 out now

 

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Using Select Into with Execute Immediate

The idea for this post came from a question I was asked about using the Execute Immediate SQL statement. The questioner asked why he was unable to execute a Select Into statement using Execute Immediate. His RPG source code compiled, but when called the program would error with a SQL code of -312, or message id SQL0312:

Variable RESULT not defined or not usable for reason code 8. 8 -- The host variable is specified in dynamic SQL. Host variables are not valid in dynamic SQL. Parameter markers must be used instead.

I found a solution for him. I could resist playing with what I found and created a far more complicated scenario that I am sharing with you in this post.

Patron saint of IT's day

In the western Christian calendar today is a special day for everyone working in information Technology, as it is Saint Isidore of Seville saint's day.

St Isidore of Seville is special to the IT community as in 1997 he was made patron saint of all things related to computers and IT by Pope John Paul II. You can learn more about Isidore here.

Happy St Isidore of Seville day, and let's hope for a little divine intervention so all of our IT projects in the next year complete successfully, on time, and on budget.

"Looking at his example it looks so easy. Gratias tibi RPGPGM.COM!"