• Retrieve The Call Stack In DB2 For i

  September 11, 2013 Michael Sansoterra

  Note: The document accompanying this article is available for download here. Troubleshooting problems is often a costly component of application maintenance. Consider the case when the user reports an application crash. Exactly what program crashed? Was it the UI logic or business logic embedded in a service program? If it was a service program, what procedure was running? What was the chain of events that led to the problem? Knowing what the call stack looks like can help answer many of these questions, thereby reducing costly investigation time. Since writing “persistent stored modules” (a.k.a., SQL routines) is increasingly popular

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• Which Job Is Filling Up My System Storage?

  August 21, 2013 Hey, Joe

  Every so often, our system storage breaches its threshold level, and we have to find the job that is filling up storage before it crashes our system. This is usually a race against time. Do you have any tips on how to quickly find runaway jobs that are gobbling up storage? –Mike I feel your pain on this one. Hitting the threshold can be a recurring event in some shops, and it’s always better to find out sooner when this problem occurs rather than later. Here’s how I handle this issue. Set Your ASP Threshold At A Reasonable Level On

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• Join The Queue With Open Access

  August 21, 2013 Jon Paris

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. It has been a while since my last tip on RPG Open Access and now that everyone running IBM i V6 or 7 has access to it for no additional cost, I thought it was time to revisit the subject. OA handlers operate in one of two modes: buffer and names/values. The buffer option performs better, but requires the handler to know the layout of the data in the buffer in advance. Names/values (NV) handlers, such as the one I introduced in the previous article, do not

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• Override Default Data Types In The SQL Descriptor

  August 21, 2013 Hey, Mike

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. I’d like to use SQL Descriptors in an embedded SQL program to read column data into host variables. However, if my host variable type doesn’t match exactly the parameter or column data type then I receive an SQL0076 error: “DATA or INDICATOR item not correct.” How can I, for example, receive the data from a CHAR(10) column from the SQL descriptor into an RPG varying-length character 20 variable, without using an explicit CAST in the SQL statement? –J.B. AUTHOR’S NOTE: If you’re unfamiliar with SQL descriptors, please see

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• SQL and Invalid Decimal Data

  August 7, 2013 Ted Holt

  I’m sure no reader of this august publication likes decimal data errors. One single such error can ruin an entire day. The wise programmer uses tools and techniques to keep invalid numeric data from becoming a problem. One such tool that you can use to find and fix invalid data is SQL. Assume that a physical file has a customer account number stored as seven digits packed decimal, with no decimal positions. Suppose there are one or more blank records in the physical file. You query the file by customer number, like this: select * from baddata where customerid =

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• IFSPOP–Another (And A Better) IFS Interface

  August 7, 2013 Hey, Ted

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. I read your article, Another IFS Interface, and I agree with you that IBM‘s green-screen solutions leave a lot to be desired. I got so fed up with WRKLNK, and the even more obtuse WRKFLR, that I wrote my own solution. It’s nothing fancy, but it is a lot better than what exists. It’s a green-screen solution written in RPG. I modeled it after POP, one of my favorite tools, from the System/36 days. The idea, like POP of old, is that if there is something

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• Admin Alert: Budgeting For Your Next Power Systems Upgrade

  August 7, 2013 Joe Hertvik

  If you’re acquiring a new Power systems machine in 2014, you may be preparing your capital budget right now. However, there’s more to purchasing a Power system running IBM i (Power i) than just a good purchase price. This week, I’ll look at some other expenses you may encounter when buying new hardware, and what you can do to budget correctly and minimize those costs. Budget For Operating Expenses, As Well As Capital A frequent Power i purchasing mistake is that companies sometimes make sure they have enough capital budget for new or upgraded machines, but they forget to budget

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• Automatically Answering IBM i Unable To Allocate Record Messages

  July 24, 2013 Hey, Joe

  We have a persistent problem with application jobs waiting on record locks with an RNQ1218 (unable to allocate a record in file &7) message. The record is only temporarily locked because by the time my help desk looks at it, the lock is gone and the program resumes after answering the message with an ‘R’ (Retry). Any ideas what we can do so we’re not constantly answering record lock messages? –Bob In your case, the first thing is to determine why a constantly needed record is always being locked and to devise a fix. This could be a case where

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• Value An Expression? *YES!

  July 24, 2013 Ted Holt

  I find it ironic that the most commonly used CL command suffers from an annoying (if not aggravating) limitation that does not afflict many less-used commands. Fortunately, the commands you and I write do not have to have this limitation. The command to which I refer is CALL. The limitation is that the parameters must be literals or variables, never expressions. To see what I mean, look at this CALL command. call somepgm parm(%sst(&Data 5 4)) Doesn’t that make sense to you? The first parameter consists of bytes 5 through 8 of a variable named &DATA. The compiler complains, expressing

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• Control The Flow Of Stored Procedure Result Sets

  July 24, 2013 Hey, Mike

  I have an RPG program (defined as an SQL external stored procedure) that returns a data structure array as a result set. When this procedure is called from iNavigator, I can see the result set. But in our .NET client/server environment, the result set is not returned to the .NET program. Further, the .NET program first calls a “setup” stored procedure that establishes the library list and general environment settings. Thereafter this “setup” procedure calls the RPG program that returns the result set. The RPG program runs upon request from the .NET world but no result set is returned. –B.C.

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