Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.

Recently I was teaching a group of RPGers the joys of qualified data structures. I happened to mention how much simpler some of the new DS capabilities had made the techniques I use to avoid problems caused by record locks. It turned out that more than half of the audience had never heard of the technique. I guess that we all have a tendency to think that the techniques and tools that we use are common knowledge amongst other programmers. As an educator I should perhaps be less

We rely heavily on the DSPSPLF (Display Spooled File) command. We use it all day long, you and I, usually by selecting option 5 from various work-with displays. And yet this workhorse on which we depend suffers from a glaring deficiency–searching for text is case-sensitive. We expect case sensitivity from primitive operating systems like Unixsaurus, but not from the powerful IBM i. Here are a few ways to locate text in spooled files regardless of case.

First is the modern–and in my opinion, the best–way: IBM Navigator for i, the browser application that replaces System i Navigator. This app runs

In my last article, the git tooling was introduced as a mechanism to track changes made to source code. This article expounds on that by showing how to make your local IFS git repository (“repo” for short) publicly available to others. I say “publicly” because that is the purpose of this article, though it could just as easily be applied to a situation where you wanted a private repo for a specific set of users (i.e., co-workers and/or consultants).

For the purposes of this article we will be walking through setting up a GitHub.com public repo. Note, GitHub has