By now, most System i and AS/400 developers know they can enhance the SQL language in DB2 for i5/OS by creating their own user-defined functions (UDFs). In this tip I’d like to focus on one common problem encountered when writing queries and how a simple UDF template can often solve this problem.

By way of review, in case you’re not familiar with them, UDFs are pieces of code that can bolt onto SQL. UDFs usually contain business logic for doing complex tasks that would be difficult or cumbersome to do using the SQL built-in functions. There are a variety of

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

My wife and I recently visited our local Cracker Barrel, which is one of our favorite restaurants. While we were waiting for our food, I picked up the peg game that unfailingly occupies patrons at the tables of that establishment and, for the umpteenth time, failed to solve it.

The Peg Game

In case you’re not familiar with a peg game, here’s how it works. The board has 15 holes arranged in a triangle and 14 of the holes are occupied by pegs. To

In Part 1 of this article, Getting Started with Trial Capacity on Demand, Part 1, I described how I recently approached the decision to activate additional trial processors on a client’s System i 550 box. This week I’m completing the process by reviewing the activation process steps and the various published and unpublished steps you need to take to add temporary processing power to your system.

The Basic Situation

Capacity on Demand (CoD) is IBM‘s way of delivering (and selling) additional processors that can be activated in a very short time when your system is experiencing performance issues.