A Simple Guide to jar
October 23, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Hey, Ted:
I read with interest the Midrange Guru article, “FTP and Save Files, Yet Again“, and I have a question. Do you have a simple guide to using the Qshell jar utility, something simple enough for someone who knows nothing about Qshell?
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— Jeff
Jar stands for Java Archive and is just another name for the zip format that has been around for years in the PC world. As far as I know, jar files and zip files are interchangeable. I’ve never had a problem using one when I supposedly needed the other.
Jar is made for stream files, which are common in UNIX and PC environments. I have not had good luck with jar and database files.
To get back to the original question that kicked off this topic, here’s how to transfer a save file from one iSeries to another using the jar utility.
- On the iSeries, create the save file on the source machine and load it using the appropriate save command.
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Use the QSH command to start Qshell. Jar will not read the save file from a library, at least not on the V5R1 machine I used. A tech editor who worked on this tip tested under V4R3, and jar read the save file. Then he tested on a V5R2 machine and jar would not read the save file. Go figure.
If jar won’t read the save file on your machine, copy the save file to an IFS file. The following example copies a save file called PROTOS in library MYLIB to an IFS file called protos.savf.
cp /QSYS.LIB/MYLIB.LIB/PROTOS.FILE protos.savf
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Use jar to compress the IFS file into a jar file.
jar cvf protos.jar protos.savf
The first argument of the jar command is a list of options. The c option creates the jar file. The v option (“verbose”) causes jar to write messages to the display as it works. I like the v option and usually include it. The f option tells jar that the name of the jar file follows in another argument. Pay attention to the f option–you’ll need it every time you run jar, and if you leave it off, jar sits there, waiting for input from the keyboard, until you finally realize what’s happened and cancel the command.
The options are followed by the jar file name (because the f option was specified). The last argument is the name of the file to be archived. You can list more files if you wish.
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FTP the jar file to the IFS of the target iSeries box. Use a binary transfer (because the data is not text data) and specify namefmt 1 (because you are dealing with IFS files).
bin namefmt 1 put /home/mydir/protos.jar /home/somedir/protos.jar
You can see the contents of the jar file, on either system, by running the jar command with the t (table of contents) option.
jar tf protos.jar
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Log into the target system. Create a save file, either from a CL command line or from Qshell.
From a command line:
CRTSAVF FILE(MYLIB/MYSAVF)
From Qshell:
system 'crtsavf file(mylib/mysavf)'
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To extract the jar file into an IFS file, use the x option. Don’t forget the f option and the jar file name.
jar xf protos.jar
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Copy the extracted IFS file to the save file.
cp protos.savf /QSYS.LIB/MYLIB.LIB/PROTOS.FILE
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Exit Qshell to get back to a CL command line. Use the appropriate restore command to restore the saved objects to a library.
RSTOBJ OBJ(PROTOTYPES) SAVLIB(MYLIB) DEV(*SAVF) SAVF(PROTOS)
— Ted
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