In the IBM i world does "Christmas" come twice a year when the PTFs for the Spring and Fall Technology Refreshes are delivered? I think so!
Today the PTFs for Db2 (SQL) and RPG are released for the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR2 and 7.4 TR8.
The base operating system PTFs for these TRs became available on the May 8, 2023, but they did not include any of the changes and enhancements to Db2/Database or RPG.
Having been busy recently performing presentations to various user groups and conferences I noticed an oversight in my work. In my presentations I had given an example of using the ON-EXIT group showing how I can use an indicator to indicate if an error had occurred in the procedure or subprocedure. In my post, on this website, about ON-EXIT I only mentioned it in passing. In this post I want to overcome oversight to show how I can do this.
The ON-EXIT group can be added to the end of every procedure or subprocedure in a RPG program. Regardless of whether the procedure or subprocedures errors or not, the code within the ON-EXIT group is always executed.
Let me start with my first example program, this one does not have any procedures or subprocedures:
There are two updated publications from IBM to help us get the best performance from our favorite operating system, IBM i, and from the brand new IBM Power10 server it runs upon.
The first is "IBM Power 10 performance optimization for IBM i". It is 22 pages long and covers all kinds ways you can get the most from your IBM Power 10 server. I have read most of it, and when my employers moves to a Power 10 server, later this year, I hope to implement most of its suggestions. You can download your own copy here.
The other is the "IBM i on Power – Performance FAQ". This one is 112 pages and covers in detail what you can do to get the most from the IBM i operating system. This includes sections for things you can do with your RPG and COBOL to optimize it. This can be downloaded from here.
Lots of information to read, but worth it to get the best from our operating system and servers.
Two new columns were added to the OUTPUT_QUEUE_ENTRIES SQL View and SQL Table Function as part of IBM i 7.5 Technology Refresh 1 and IBM i 7.4 TR7, and while I wonder how often I will use them I do find the information they return interesting.
These columns are:
Amongst the many new additions to the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR1 and 7.4 TR7, comes a new View and Table Function that allows me to retrieve information about a partition's hardware resources, including its status.
Both have the same name, HARDWARE_RESOURCE_INFO, and are in the library QSYS2. The View returns information for all hardware resources, the Table Function returns can be used to only return the information about one type of hardware resource or another. Both return the same columns in their results.
Before I start showing you examples of the results from these two I recommend you run the following SQL statement. This will allow you to see all the available columns, and help you decide what is useful to you.
Tervetuloa, COMMON Finland have a new website, at commonfinland.fi
They become the 18th national association affiliated with COMMON Europe to launch their website.
I have added their site to my IBM i User Groups page. There is a link at the top of every page and post to this page.
If you are a member of, or know of, any User Groups not listed on my IBM i User Groups page please let me know of it, using the Contact Form that you can find on every post and page.
As part of the latest round of Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR1 and 7.4 TR7, three new columns were added to one of my favorites Db2 for i Table Functions, HISTORY_LOG_INFO. I often use this Table Function to search the IBM i partitions' history.
The new columns are all parts of the existing job name column, FROM_JOB:
These columns might not sound like a big addition to HISTORY_LOG_INFO, but the first two, name and user, make it easier to find results I am looking for.
Update (January 24, 2023)
I can now use the special values '*ERROR', '*WARN', or '*ALL' rather than having to list all the SQL codes. Read about it here.
Introduced as part of IBM i 7.5 Technology Refresh 1 and IBM i 7.4 TR7, is a mechanism to capture details of SQL errors into a separate log table. I can decide which errors I want to capture in the log, by use of the SQL code. The SQL codes to capture are set at the SQL session level, rather than at the IBM i job level.
This is called the SQL Error Logging Facility, or SELF for short. It consists of several parts, the parts I am going to explain in detail are:
The original contents of this page have become obsolete, go to this page for up-to-date information.
This is what I have found since yesterday about the new Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR2 and IBM i 7.4 TR8.
Then new release of ACS is now available. You will find instructions about how to download it here.
The Spring 2023 Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR2 and IBM i 7.4 TR8, have been announced today.
The availability dates for the PTFs are:
All the information about these TRs can be found:
Additions and changes to the RPG programming language are:
In this scenario there are two files with identical field names, and they have the same data types too. I was asked if there is an easy way, using SQL, to insert all records from one file into a second file, omitting records that match ones that are in the second file.
I wanted to come up a solution where I did not have to give any field/column names in the statement. For all I knew the files in questions had many, many field names.
I created a file, I called FILE1, with four fields. Then I used the Create Duplicate Object command, CRTDUPOBJ, to create a duplicate, which I called FILE2.
FILE1 contained four records, which I can show using the following SQL statement: