• Odds and Ends

  November 14, 2007 Hey, Professional

  It’s been a while since we ran an article of odds and ends. Here are several short tips for working with the Integrated File System (IFS). I hope you find something useful. Question: The Work with Object Links (WRKLNK) panel doesn’t show complete file names. What I see is the first 18 characters of a file name, a space, and a greater-than sign, like this: Sales (3Q-2007) Re > Sales (3Q-2007) Re > Sales (3Q-2007) Re > Sales (3Q-2007) Re > Sales (3Q-2007) Re > Is there a way to make it show the complete names? Answer: You’re close. Just

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• Admin Alert: How Big is My IFS?

  November 14, 2007 Joe Hertvik

  I recently had to quickly determine the size of my production box’s AS/400 Integrated File System (IFS) when its DASD usage zoomed past its ASP threshold value and was threatening to crash the system. Since I didn’t have a good technique handy, I evaluated several different IFS evaluation methods on the fly. Here’s what I learned and how to use these methods to locate where your big IFS folders live. Free Tools in Different Packages Due to my cheap nature and even more limited budget, I usually gravitate toward what IBM and the Internet can offer. For determining IFS folder

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• V6R1 CL Enhancements

  November 7, 2007 Ted Holt

  Thanks to the kindness of Guy Vig and Fernando Hurtado of the International Business Machines Corporation, I have information for you concerning V6R1 CL. For the third straight release, IBM has added solid features to the compiler. Since I use CL heavily, I greatly appreciate the effort. Here’s what you can look forward to when you install V6R1. Close a File CL includes a new Close Database File (CLOSE) command that you can use to close a file. This gives you another way to process a file more than once in a CL procedure. As you are no doubt aware,

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• Copy Message Descriptions

  November 7, 2007 Hey, Ted

  The Work with Message Descriptions (WRKSMSGD) panel gives me options 2, 4, 5, and 6 to change, delete, display, and print message descriptions. But there is no option to allow me to copy a message description. Such an option would be helpful when I need to create a new message description that is similar to an existing one, or when I copy a message description to another message file. Am I overlooking an easy way to copy message descriptions? –Ron To the best of my knowledge, no. (Buddy, I hope I’m wrong on this one.) Let’s take the second case

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• Admin Alert: Five Benefits of a High-Availability System

  November 7, 2007 Joe Hertvik

  I recently wrote a column describing i5/OS features that enable high availability functionality in your shop. This week, I’m narrowing the focus and discussing five benefits you can realize when installing a Capacity BackUp System (CBU) for System i failover in case of disaster. Some of these benefits are to be expected, but others might cause you to rethink your idea of a CBU and what it provides. What Is a CBU? As I described in my earlier piece, a CBU is a specially configured System i machine or partition that communicates with your main production box and replicates

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• Use PHP to Bring i5/OS Resources to the Web

  October 31, 2007 Erwin Earley

  This is our third article in the PHP in i5/OS series. In previous articles we have provided an overview of PHP on System i as well as the basic syntax of the language. This article provides an overview of the API toolkit, and a collection of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that facilitate PHP programs accessing and working with i5/OS objects. Web Development and Deployment Stacks–LAMP To begin our discussion let’s first look at the Web development and deployment stack that incorporation of PHP provides to i5/OS. In the past you have probably encountered the LAMP stack – a Web development/deployment

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• Wrapping Free Form Text

  October 31, 2007 Michael Sansoterra

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. One common integration problem encountered by those building client/server or Web-based interfaces to a legacy green-screen application is mapping a free form text field into a fixed width field. This tip presents a code segment I wrote to solve this problem. For example, say you have the following DDS defined legacy table called ORDCOMT that is designed to store the comments for a customer order: Column Data Type Description ORDID 7P,0 Order Id CMTSEQ 3P,0 Comment Sequence CMTTXT 25A Comment Text In the legacy application, a customer service

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• Admin Alert: Limiting System i User Sign-ons the Smart Way

  October 31, 2007 Joe Hertvik

  In certain scenarios, you may want to limit certain users from starting more than one i5/OS session at a time. While the System i provides a method for limiting all users from starting multiple sessions, it’s not widely understood how to limit individual users from starting multiple sessions. This week, I’ll examine how to limit individual i5/OS user sign-ons and I’ll show you how to use it to your advantage. The Art of Limiting Multiple Sign-ons The Limit device sessions system value (QLMTDEVSSN) will generally control whether your users can start more than one user session at a

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• Good Reasons to Use Unrequired Correlation Names

  October 24, 2007 Ted Holt

  Correlation names are alternate names given to tables in an SQL command. Sometimes correlation names are required. Other times they are optional, but helpful. I would go so far as to say that it is good practice to use correlation names as often as possible, even when they are not obligatory. Let me share two good reasons to do so. But first, let’s review the basics of correlation names. A correlation name follows a table name in the FROM clause. The table name and correlation name must be separated by white space. You may also include the filler word AS

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• Externally Described Database IO through Data Structures

  October 24, 2007 Ted Holt

  Eons ago, IBM enhanced the RPG compiler by allowing program-described files to define data formats using data structures instead of Input and Output specs. I have taken advantage of this ability from time to time since then, and would be willing to testify in anybody’s court of law that I don’t miss I and O specs one little bit. It was much later, in V5R2, that IBM decided that data structures should be allowed for externally described files as well. I was not so excited about this decision until recently, when I realized that the use of data structures for

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