EoS for 7.4 announced

What I have been predicting for a while happened on Tuesday September 16, 2025. IBM announced that the end of standard support for IBM i 7.4 will occur on September 30, 2026.

After that date support for this release will only be offered as a Service Extension. In the past the Service Extension is offered at twice the cost of standard support.

If you have Power9, Power10, or Power11 you can upgrade your IBM i release to the two remaining supported releases: 7.5 and 7.6 .

If you have a Power8, 7.4 is the last release that can be run on that server. You will need to upgrade to a later Power server, Power11, to be able to upgrade to one of the newer releases.

IBM's announcement for the Withdrawal from marketing and change in service level: IBM i 7.4.

IBM's document of the IBM Power systems and the IBM i releases they can run.

Extracting the same data from multiple spool files with SQL

The idea for this post came from a question I was asked. There were a number of program dump spool files, QPGMDMP, and the manager wanted to know what was the value in a same variable from all of the spool files. While others said there was no alternative than to browse each spool file for the information. I knew there was a better way using SQL.

In these examples I am not using program dump spool files as you would be unable to replicate what I am going to show. Therefore, I am using the output from the Work Output Queue command, WRKOUTQ, with it outputting to a spool file:

01 WRKOUTQ OUTPUT(*PRINT)

Forta survey

Today, September 15, Fortra's thirteenth annual "IBM i Marketplace Survey" starts.

IMHO it is important for all of us, no matter where we are in the world, to take part. The results of this survey gives a "snap shot" of what is important to the IBM i community. You will often see IBM-ers quoting the results of the survey too.

The survey is open September 15 – October 31, with the results being published in January 2026.

Please take the time to participate in the survey.

Click here to take part.

Click here to see the results of last year's survey.

Calculating the remainder using SQL

I had a scenario where I needed to determine the remainder value following a division operation for all the rows in a SQL Table. Rather than performing the calculation myself to determine the remainder there is a SQL scalar function that will return it for me, its name is MOD.

IBM's documentation for MOD states that it "divides the first argument by the second argument and returns the remainder". Its syntax is just:

MOD( < dividend value or variable > , < divisor value or variable > )

For example:

01 VALUES MOD(9, 2)

RPGPGM.COM-unity i Norge

Last week I was fortunate to be in Oslo, Norway, for COMMON Norge's "Professional day". I took this opportunity to hand out some of the the "RPGPGM.COM-unity" ribbons. You can see who I gave them to here.

Norway is the fifth country I have handed ribbons out to. It is wonderful to see how the community is expanding to different areas of the world.

What is the RPGPGM.COM-unity? You will have to click on this link to learn about it.

Another way to check if file exists in IFS

In June I wrote about how to use SQL to check if a file existed in the IFS. I received a communication from Rich Diedrich offering an alternative, using the access C procedure. I have taken his code and developed it into this example.

I created an external procedure that I made into a service program to perform the checking, and then wrote a small RPG program to call it to validate if certain files exist.

I am going to start by showing the source code for the external procedure, which resides in a module I called TESTMOD1.

CVTDAT can use 1970 rule

This almost slipped past me, the information in the IBM i 7.6 documentation that says that the Convert Date command, CVTDAT can use the '1970 rule'.

Whether CVTDAT uses the '1940 rule' or the '1970 rule' depends upon the presence of the QIBM_QBASEYEAR Environment variable. If its value is '1970' that rule is used, if it is not present then the '1940 rule' is used.

How can I tell if I have that Environment variable? There are two ways. I can use the Work with Environment Variables command, WRKENVVAR:

01 WRKENVVAR

Additions to the SYSDISKSTAT

SYSDISKSTAT returns the information about disk and solid-state drives, SSD. It comes in two forms:

• SYSDISKSTAT View
• SYSDISKSTAT Table function

I am not going to say much more about using these two as I gave a lot of detail when they were first introduced.

In the latest release IBM i 7.6 and 7.5 TR6 two new columns have been added to both of the SYSDISKSTAT:

Identifying and changing object owners

Before I delete an user profile I always want to identify which objects it owns, and then transfer them to another profile or profiles. I can see which objects they own using the Work with Object by Owner command, WRKOBJOWN. If there are a lot of objects in the results I do not find this user interface helpful.

Db2 for i offers us an alternative, the OBJECT_OWNERSHIP table function. I have written about the OBJECT_OWNERSHIP view before, it would appear I overlooked the table function.

The advantage of using a table function is that only the results for the parameters passed are found, like calling an API. With a view the rows are selected according to the selection criteria, which is like searching a file or table. In various situations, one may have an have advantages over the other. In this scenario, I only want the information for one user profile, the table function is more efficient.

The syntax for the OBJECT_OWNERSHIP is simple, as it only needs one parameter passed to it, the user profile:

Get more RPGPGM.COM in your Google Search

I get quiet few communications from readers of this website that they have bookmarked RPGPGM.COM in their browser, or they have made it their home page. I am very flattered that people appreciate my work enough to do that.

If you are someone who finds the content of this website useful, and want to have a way to list results from it more prominently in your Google search experience, Google has added a new feature to help: Google Preferred Sources.

At the time of publication this feature is available in the USA and India, for Google searches in English. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will eventually be rolled out globally.

What does it do? This is what Google says in their blog post announcing the release of "Preferred sources":

When you select your preferred sources, you'll start to see more of their articles prominently displayed within Top Stories, when those sources have published fresh and relevant content for your search.

This is available for Desktop, Android, and iPhone and iPad.

Rather than follow the steps described in the articles to activate Preferred sources, you can just click on the button below.

You must be signed into your Google Account before clicking.

More information can be found:

• Google blog: How to select your preferred sources in Top Stories in Search
• Google Search Help: Top stories in search

Prevent my user profile being used when others submit job

It is possible to submit jobs to batch that will run for another user profile by using the User parameter in the Submit Job command, SBMJOB. For example:

SBMJOB CMD(DLTF FILE(MYLIB/INVHIST)) JOB(TEST) USER(SIMON1)

The above shows that the current job is trying to submit a job to run with the SIMON1 user profile. I would consider to be a security risk. If SIMON1 has more authority than the current user, let's say that is NOTSIMON, then NOTSIMON can submit jobs that perform tasks they are not authorized to do, or do something bad that they will not be blamed for.

Fortunately in most cases NOTSIMON would receive the message:

SBMJOB CMD(DLTF FILE(MYLIB/INVHIST)) JOB(TEST) USER(SIMON1) Not authorized to user profile SIMON1.

I have encountered various companies where all the SBMJOB commands in their programs would use a "special" user profile for batch jobs, that had more authority than the average user. In this scenario when NOTSIMON ran a program that SBMJOB, and I looked at the calling job's job log I would see something like:

Useful IBM Support document for data type mapping

Someone sent me this link to an IBM Support document that maps DDS data types to SQL and ODBC data types. And I decided to share it with you as I find this information both interesting and useful.

DDS/SQL Data Type Mappings - IBM Support

New version of ACS, 1.1.9.9, is now available

Yesterday I discovered that a new version of ACS became available for download.

Giving the ability to see all of the objects on the system

I understand why IBM i developers should not have all object authority, *ALLOBJ, but at times I am frustrated by my inability to find objects in my partition. I do not want to do anything to them, just know that they exist. I have to find someone with a security office equivalent user profile and ask them to do a search for me.

I have found a way that this frustration can be removed. It will work on all partitions that are IBM i 7.5 or higher. I think what I am going to describe is included in the initial release. As none of the partition I have access to are running just base 7.5 I cannot check that this did not come in a Technology Refresh, TR.

Function Usages are way to be granted access to perform certain higher authorization functions, without being given that higher authorization. I was going through IBM's documentation about them when I came across:

Finding source members with the same name

How would I find if a source member with the same name is found in more than one source file? If there is, which one was modified most recently? I am sure those are questions many of us have asked ourselves. How could we can make this easy for ourselves to get this information? Fortunately, Db2 for i has everything I need to do it.

I start with the SYSMEMBERSTAT View, it was introduced a couple of Technology Refreshes ago, IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10, and it is used in place of SYSPARTITIONSTAT when I need information about members.

What are the columns I am interested in:

SDA is not available in IBM i 7.6

The announcement of IBM i 7.6 included notice that the following application development tool set commands were no longer available:

• STRSDA:  Start Screen Design Aid
• STRRLU:  Start Report Layout Utility
• STRAPF:  Start Advanced printer Function
• MRGFORMD:  Merge Form Description
• STRCGU:  Start Character Generator Utility
• CPYIGCSRT:  Copy DBCS Master Sort Table
• MRGFORMD:  Merge Form Description

The web page with this information is here.

In the past week there were rumors circulating in social media that this is not true, and it is still possible to use the STRSDA command in 7.6 .

Retrieve the SQL statements from multiple QM queries

The germ for this post came from a message I received:

Is there any way to retrieve sources for all QMQRY objects available inside a library in one go? My objective is, there are 100's of QMQRY objects(SQL type) inside a library but they don't have predefined source members. I need search for particular string inside all those SQL queries used inside the QMQRY objects.

I decided to work out a way I could do this.

I did not create "100's" of Query Management, QM, queries as what will work for two will work for many more too.

It is possible to retrieve the SQL statement from a QM query object by use of the Retrieve Query Management Query command, RTVQMQRYM. That command copies the retrieved statement into a source member.

CPW ratings for Power11 servers

When the IBM Power11 servers were announced, July 8, several people contacted me if I had the CPW rating for the new servers.

What is CPW? It is a number that is frequently mentioned, but I have never seen its definition. After some digging I found the following:

The CPW, Commercial Processing Workload, rating provides a measure to show how on-line transactions processing, OLTP, workloads perform on systems that run IBM i. The CPW rating is built using workloads that can utilize the full processing power of the system.

Below is a summary of the Power11 CPW. I have included the top of range Power10 equivalent too, its column is gray.

Moving one person's spool files to a different output queue

I was asked if there was a simple way to check an output queue, and if there is a spool file of a certain name for one user, to move it to another output queue.

Fortunately this is not as complicated as it sounds as I can use a SQL Table function to retrieve a list of those spool files, and a scalar function to move the spool file.

In this example I am going to be the user, my profile is SIMON, and whenever I find a spool file QPQUPRFIL in the output queue MYOUTQ I want to move it to the output queue OUTQ2.

First I need to produce a list of eligible spool files. Here I can use the SPOOLED_FILE_INFO SQL Table function:

Some Power11 performance and efficiency information

I had been unable to find any information comparing the performance and efficiency of the new IBM Power11 to previous IBM Power servers. I reached out for this information to people I know and they shared with me an IBM document, whose information I have copied into this post.

Before we get started I need to briefly explain what rPerf is. It is a method to approximate the difference in performance between two Power servers. rPerf is only for AIX. For IBM i performance CPW is used. I found an IBM page explaining what rPerf is here.

All of the quotes I giving below are from the document I received. They are divided into Performance and IT Efficiency. While the document did not group them together I am doing so. I am not including the disclaimers with the quotes, as that will make it difficult to read. The disclaimers can be found at the bottom of this post.

More details about Power11

I have found more links on IBM's websites about Power11 that I think are worth sharing:

• IBM Power Security new enhancements and capabilities
• IBM Power E1180: Powering the Future with Unmatched Reliability, Security and Scalability for the AI Era
• IBM Power E1150: Full-Stack Innovation for Autonomous, Scalable, and Secure IT
• IBM Power S1124: A New Era of Full-Stack Design and Synergy
• IBM Power L1124: A New Era of Full-Stack Design and Synergy
• IBM Power S1122: Transforming Infrastructure with Integrated Full-Stack Solutions
• IBM Power L1122: Transforming Infrastructure with Integrated Full-Stack Solutions
• IBM Power Platform Enhancements 3Q 2025
• IBM Extends hardware capabilities with the new IBM Rack-Mounted Flat-Panel Console Kit with Keyboard
• IBM Power Security new enhancements and capabilities
• IBM Power Expert Care Power11 systems

Video of the announcement on Tuesday July 8, 2025:

• Video

IBM Power11 chips and servers are announced

Today is the day! The new IBM Power servers using the new Power11 chips have been announced.

Over the years IBM has developed increasingly more power Power, chips that have been significant improvements from the previous one.

New Modernization Techniques Redbook from IBM

On May 20, 2025, IBM published a Redbook with the title "Modernization Techniques for IBM Power".

The abstract that accompanies the Redbook on their website states:

This IBM Redbook offers a high-level overview of modernization, including key concepts and terminology to guide your modernization journey. It explores the components and architectural layers of the IBM Power ecosystem, demonstrating how they create an ideal platform for running mission-critical applications in today's world. The content is designed for business leaders, architects, and application developers.

It devotes a chapter, chapter 9, to the IBM i. I think it is worth downloading this document even if you only read chapter 9.

You can download this Redbook from the link here.

SQL table function to list all imports for ILE program or service program

This is one of the IBM i enhancements that was released in version 7.6, but not in 7.5 TR6. This new table function, PROGRAM_RESOLVED_IMPORTS, allows me to get a list of all the imports for an ILE program or service program.

This Table function has four parameters:

1. PROGRAM_LIBRARY:  Library that contains the ILE program or service program. "*LIBL" is not supported.
2. PROGRAM_NAME:  Name of the ILE program or service program.
3. OBJECT_TYPE:  *PGM for ILE program, *SRVPGM for ILE service program.
4. IGNORE_ERRORS:  Optional. NO when an error is encounter an error is returned. YES a warning is returned, this is the default.

This looks like:

How to identify flat files

The question was is there an easy way to identify "flat files" without having to use the DSPFD command. The answer, of course, is "Yes".

The questioner explained that a "flat file" was a file that was generated without the use of DDS or DDL. In other words, just with the Create Physical File command, CRTPF. For example:

CRTPF FILE(MYLIB/FLATFILE) RCDLEN(100)

The questioner was finding he could identify these "flat files" with the Display File Description command, DSPFD, like this:

DSPFD FILE(MYLIB/FLATFILE)

Michiganders join the RPGPGM.COM-unity

At the MiTec conference earlier this month more people joined the RPGPGM.COM-unity.

You can see photographs of these new members here.

If you see me at an IBM i event feel free to introduce yourself to me. In all likelihood I will have a RPGPGM.COM-unity ribbon on me, and you can become a member. 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.

Happy birthday to IBM Power and IBM i

Tomorrow, Saturday June 21 2025, is the 37th anniversary of when the IBM AS/400 was first announced. You can watch the video of the announcement in the UK here.

What a wonderful journey we have all been on all these years as the AS/400 (1988 – 2000) begat the iSeries (2000 – 2006), which in turn gave way to the System i (2006 – 2008), and finally IBM Power server running the IBM i operating system (2008 – Present). All the time being IBM's premier server and operating system providing modern functionality, stability and robustness to their customers.

Today the AS/400 looks dated, which it is. But IBM Power can hold its own compared to any comparable business system.

I think I did a good job describing this history 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!

IBM makes it easier to delete old journal receivers

Old journal receivers can quickly become one of the big wasters of storage on any IBM i partition. I have written before how to identify receivers I think can be deleted. In IBM i 7.6 and 7.5 TR6 comes a new SQL procedure that makes it easy to delete the old receivers.

I need to define what I mean by "old receivers". An "old" journal receiver has been detached from its journal and saved. In my mind if it is detached and been saved, I can delete it. If I need the information contained within it, I can restore it.

I would not use the new procedure to look if I have old receivers, I would use the JOURNAL_RECEIVER_INFO View to get to the information I would want, before using the new procedure.

For example, if I want to find the ten oldest journal on my partition, I would use the following statement:

RPGPGM.COM-unity at PowerUp2025

Last month I attended COMMON PowerUp2025. It was wonderful to be able to catch up with all my friends in the IBM i community, and hand out RPGPGM.COM-unity ribbons. You can see who I gave them too here.

If I gave you a ribbon and I missed taking a photograph of you with it, please send me a photograph posed like the other people I photographed and I will add you.

What is RPGPGM.COM-unity? You can click on this link to learn what it means.

A dozen years of RPGPGM.COM

Every year my mind is boggled each time I reach the anniversary of this blog. It is incredible to me that I have been writing for a dozen years about everything I find interesting with IBM i, and that you take your time to read it. Your encouragement is very much appreciated.

What has happened in the past twelve months?

Simple way to check if a file exists in the IFS

Someone reached out to me asking for a straightforward way to check if a file exists in a particular folder in the IFS. They included their program, which, IMHO, was overly complicated. This will be another example of providing a simple, easy to understand, solution using SQL and RPG.

In my example I will be checking if a file exists, and the path for the file will be passed as a parameter from a RPG program. I also want to make the part that does the checking be a procedure. As one procedure can be called by multiple programs, as there could be other files in the future I want to check on.

I am going to create this procedure in a module that I will then bind into a RPG program. In the "real" world the procedure would be added to a service program, so that the logic within the procedure could be changed without having to recreate all the programs that use it.

Increment a number held in a character field

The title is simplistic for what this post is really about. The question that was asked was:

I have a character field in a DDS physical file that is 20 characters long. There can be various numbers in that field of any length. I want to retrieve the value from the field, increment it by one, and update the field in the file.

If all the "numbers" in the field in the file were 20 characters long it would be easy, but as the "numbers" can be of different lengths it makes the problem more interesting.

First I need a file for this 20 character field. I decided to call it TESTFILE and the DDS code for it is:

01 A UNIQUE 02 A R TESTFILER 03 A KEY 5A 04 A FIELD1 20A 05 A K KEY

SQL scalar function to break apart IFS path name

As part of the new new release, IBM i 7.6, and the latest Technology Refresh for IBM i 7.5, TR6, I can break apart an IFS path name into its parts:

• File extension
• File name
• File prefix (file name without the file extension)
• Path prefix (path without the file name)

This new SQL scalar function is called IFS_PATH, and it is found in the library SYSTOOLS.

Before I start with my examples I need to check if there are objects in the IFS I can use. This is a simple task using IFS_OBJECT_STATISTICS:

Selecting updated and deleted values when using SQL

Have you ever wanted to confirm that a SQL Update or Delete statement ran the way you expected?

In the new release, IBM i 7.6, I can do this using what IBM describes as:

1. Selecting updated values
2. Selecting deleted values

This was not added to the latest Technology Refresh for IBM i 7.5, TR6.

SELF default changes

While playing with the new release, IBM i 7.6, I noticed that the default for the SELF, SQL Error Logging Facility, SELFCODES global variable has changed.

When it first came out, IBM i 7.5 TR1 and 7.4 TR7, the default for the SELFCODES was null.

With IBM i 7.6 and 7.5 TR6 the default is '*NONE'.

Why the difference?

Both null and '*NONE' are acceptable as the default. The difference is that '*NONE' will stop SELF monitoring immediately. Null does not, only when new SQL 'jobs' start.

CREATE OR REPLACE VARIABLE SYSIBMADM.SELFCODES VARCHAR(256) DEFAULT '*NONE' ;

This is another good enhancement to SELF.

Where on the subfile is the cursor

I was asked how is it possible to determine where the cursor is on a subfile when the F4 key is pressed.

I have written about the parts needed to achieve this in separate posts, and I thought it would be a good idea to put it all together into one new post.

What I would need is:

1. A subfile program
2. Determine when the F4 is pressed
3. Retrieve the record format name
4. Retrieve subfile relative record number, RRN, of the record the cursor is on
5. Retrieve the name of the field the cursor is on in the subfile

First off, I need a subfile display file, a simple one. The code for a minimalist subfile could be:

IBM Performance documents updated for Spring 2025

Steve Will, IBM i Chief Technology Officer and Chief Architect, announced this week that new versions of the following documents had been updated by the IBM performance experts:

• IBM i on Power - Performance FAQ – see here
• IBM Power10 performance optimization for IBM i – see here

IMHO I think they both are worth checking out.

Report of the success of the nightly saves

My manager asked me if I could provide him with a report of all the libraries that were backed up as part of the night process job, NBACKUP. "You know what I mean: one line for each library" was his final statement to me.

I did want to browse a different job log for each day. I wanted to design something that was simple. I decided to use the HISTORY_LOG_INFO table function. I could select results using:

• Starting timestamp of 1 day (24 hours) ago
• I know the job name

I started with this SQL statement:

Quickest way to determine which day of the week today is

In a program I wrote recently I needed to return which day of the week today is. My first thought was to use SQL, as it would only be one line of code. But is that the fastest way to return today's day name?

I thought about writing my own RPG routine to calculate the day name, but decided to use Google to see if there was a better example. I found an article by Rafael Victoria-Pereira for MC Press from 2015 that gave what I think is an efficient way to do this, you can read his article here.

Using his example I refactored the RPG code up to 2025 standards and created this procedure:

Useful manuals

I have few more recent IBM manuals that I wanted to share with you, including the one I have been waiting for since the IBM i 7.6 announcement:

• Redbook: IBM i 7.6 Features and Functions (April, 2025) This is the one I have been waiting for
   
• Redbook: IBM Power Security Catalog (April, 2025) Chapter 5 is about IBM i
   
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA) for IBM i 7.6
   
• IC Validator Performance: Power + Teamwork (2025)

I hope you find these links interesting and useful.

IBM i 7.6 available today

The new release of the IBM i operating system, IBM i 7.6, is available today. While 7.6 will steal the headlines today, there is a Technology Refresh for IBM i 7.5, TR6, that is also available.

If you have missed all the news, you can find out what is in the new release and the new TR, here.

LISTAGG scalar function can return distinct results

I did not realize it had been so long since I first wrote about the LISTAGG scalar function. I mentioned very briefly in that article something that became very useful to me just a short while ago.

The LISTAGG scalar function aggregates the results from a one or more rows into a single new column, separated by a character of my choice.

In my scenario I have a table, TESTTABLE, that contains a column of colors, COLOR:

01 SELECT COLOR,COUNT(*) "Count" 02 FROM TESTTABLE 03 GROUP BY COLOR

Award for this website

I was notified yesterday that this website, RPGPGM.COM, had won an award.

Anuj Agarwal, founder of FeedSpot, informed me of this:

I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog Rpgpgm.Com has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 45 IBM Blogs on the web.

https://bloggers.feedspot.com/ibm_blogs/

This is the most comprehensive list of Top 45 IBM Blogs on the internet and I'm honored to have you as part of this!

RPGPGM.COM is ranked in fifth place.

Thank you Anuj, and the panel at FeedSpot, for this honor.

IBM i technical resource

Last week I found a web page I want to share with you all. It is called the "IBM i technical resources roadmap", and is curated by Robert Cecco and Scott Forstie.

The page provides links to all kinds of useful IBM resources about IBM i, including this website.

I think this is such a good resource that I am adding it to the "Links to useful sites", which is found in the right column of all the pages and posts in this website.

You can also reach that web page by using the link here.

ACS 1.1.9.8 out now

 

The original contents of this page have become obsolete, go to this page for up-to-date information.

 

More information about IBM i 7.6

I found some more interesting information about IBM i 7.6, the new release that was announced yesterday.

The first is what IBM called a "data sheet". It is only three pages long an gives a very high level insight into the new release. This might be something to share with your superior, so that they have an idea of what is in 7.6.

Version 7.6 announced

The awaited IBM iNext was announced today as IBM i 7.6. Also announced is a new Technology Refresh for IBM i 7.5 TR6.

IBM i 7.6 will only run on IBM Power 10 servers, and, I presume, on the Power 11 too whenever that is announced.

It would appear to be the end of TRs for IBM i 7.4. IBM has said they will provide fixes for 7.4, but nothing new. If you are on 7.4 on a Power 10 my recommendation it is time to start making plans to move up to at least 7.5.

The new release, IBM i 7.6 and the PTFs for IBM i 7.5 TR 6 will be available April 18, 2025.

Every release in recent years has a "theme". The "theme" of this release is security, with many of the new features and functions being to do with keeping your data and server secure.

Easier way to check if member exists

Amended April 23, 2025:  To use CHKOBJ command.

I was asked: What is the easiest way to check if a member exists in a file?

They had been recommended to perform the check in a CL program, but wondered if there was a way to do the same in a RPG program.

In a "pre-SQL" world I would have used the Check Object command, CHKOBJ, in a CL program to check if the member exists. My program would look something like this: