• Job Posting Areas Created on the IT Jungle Forums

  April 19, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  At the request of a number of IT Jungle Forums users, we have added a new Job Postings section to the forums. Headhunters and companies sometimes abuse forums by posting open job positions all over the place, and we are having none of that. We want to help people get work and companies find good people, so there are some ground rules. We have created specific areas for people looking for jobs and companies looking for people, and in our no-nonsense fashion, these areas are called Job Postings–People Looking for Work and Job Postings–Companies Looking for People. Anyone who

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• SQL Goodies in DB2 for i5/OS V5R4, Part 1

  April 12, 2006 Michael Sansoterra

  Since V4R2, I’ve watched SQL enhancements like a hawk, eagerly waiting to use the improvements IBM has given us. V5R4 SQL contains several new items that will be outlined here. Here are a few thoughts on this significant release, which I gleaned from the DB2 Summary sheet on IBM’s Web site. The SQL syntax in V5R4 meets the Core requirements for the 2003 SQL standard. A review of the 2003 SQL standard can be found by clicking here. Routines written in the SQL language will now have better execution times thanks to enhancements to the code generation engine,

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• Lesser-Known SEU Commands

  April 12, 2006 Ted Holt

  Dear esteemed, highly skilled, and truly professional colleagues: Even though WDSc is my development platform of choice, I have no choice but to use SEU at times. Can you say, “Yuck!”? Occasionally I even have to use SEU remotely through the Windows Telnet client. Can you say, “Double yuck!”? I feel like I’m back in the punch-card days. In any event, I have learned recently that some people make SEU harder than it has to be. Here are a few tips to reduce keystrokes. They’re good for everyday use, and even better when working remotely. Tip 1: You don’t have

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• Admin Alert: Another Way to Move Devices Between Systems

  April 12, 2006 Joe Hertvik

  In a recent column, I discussed how to move printer devices and output queues between systems. While that article showed you how to migrate objects by using save and restore techniques, reader Bill Bremerman wrote in to remind me that you can also use the Retrieve Configuration Source command (RTVCFGSRC) to capture CL source code, which can be used to easily recreate devices, controllers, line descriptions, and several other i5/OS objects on any system. Here is how it works. My earlier article focused on migrating device objects to a new partition by using the i5/OS Save Configuration command (SAVCFG)

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• Avoiding the Green Screen of Death in RPG Programs

  April 5, 2006 Ted Holt

  Although I have been using various versions of Microsoft Windows since the early 1990s, I am still not impressed when I gaze upon that phenomenon popularly known as the “Blue Screen of Death.” In the same way, I do not think iSeries users are impressed when they see the Display Program Messages panel, or as I call it, the “Green Screen of Death.” Fortunately, showing users the Display Program Messages panel is almost always avoidable. When a program encounters an error that it has not been told how to handle, it stops. For interactive jobs, the user is presented with

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• Change a Substring with SQL

  April 5, 2006 Hey, Ted

  I am trying to change part of a character field with an SQL UPDATE command. However, my SQL command gives me an invalid token error at the opening parenthesis of SUBSTR in the SET statement. Is there a rule that you can’t use SUBSTR in a SET statement? If so, do you have a workaround? –Dennis What you’re trying to do is reasonable, Dennis. After all, RPG and CL let you change part of a character field using their %SUBST and %SST functions. But SQL is different. For the benefit of other readers, here is the SQL command Dennis sent

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• Admin Alert: Protecting Your System from Critical Storage Errors

  April 5, 2006 Joe Hertvik

  Like all computers, i5, iSeries, and AS/400 systems are vulnerable to system failures when their disk storage units fill up. i5/OS operating system performance rapidly degrades after system storage reaches 90 percent capacity, and the system can crash–or turn itself off–when storage passes 95 percent. Because of this, it’s wise to understand how your system handles critical storage situations and how it can alert you when disk capacity problems appear. Critical storage situations can occur anytime system storage approaches and passes 90 percent, and several common situations can put you over the limit. A runaway job can fill up disk

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• What’s New in V5R4 COBOL?

  March 29, 2006 Hey, Ted

  I enjoyed the V5R4 RPG and CL enhancements articles. I can’t wait to use subroutines to clean up code in CL programs. Also, the RPG and SQL tips and techniques are great. But those of us who labor in the COBOL fields could use a little help. –Thom It’s taken me some time to get to it, Thom, but thanks to Philip Mawby, of IBM‘s Toronto software labs, I have the information you need. I’ll hit the high points. Consult the V5R4 COBOL reference for more details. XML Support In V5R4, COBOL stays ahead of RPG in the area

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• How Many Rows Did SQL Fetch?

  March 29, 2006 Hey, Ted

  I am using SQL to load a subfile. Since there are 16 subfile records to a page, I fetch 16 database records into a data structure. However, the fetch does not always return 16 rows. Sometimes it returns fewer. How can I tell how many data structure occurrences were fetched? –Lynn You will need to check the SQLER3 field of the SQL Communications Area (SQLCA). I wrote about this field earlier in Four Hundred Guru. See “How Many Records Did SQL Delete?” Here’s an example I threw together that you can start from. It fetches seven records at a

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• Setting Up User Profiles Without Passwords

  March 29, 2006 Hey, Joe

  I’m a little confused as to what happens when you set a user ID’s Password parameter (PASSWORD) to *NONE. I’m not sure whether it determines if a password is or is not required for that user to log on to the system. A little explanation here would be helpful. –Mukesh Setting a user’s password to *NONE is a relatively simple concept, but it has a few confusing aspects. Here’s how it works. You can set the User Password parameter to *NONE when you create the user profile or when you run the following Change User Profile command (CHGUSRPRF): CHGUSRPRF USRPRF(

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