FHG Volume: 8 Archives - Page 3 of 13

Pimp My Font Size, Win a No-Prize

October 29, 2008 Good-day, Joe

I have a problem with duplicate 5250 sessions. On our sessions, we change the default screen display font to another font size, such as Courier New. However when we start a second session with the same iSeries Access workstation profile, the screen font reverts back to its default font size: a regular IBM3270 font. What’s going on here and why can’t I use a different font size on multiple sessions?

–Jean-Pierre

To solve this problem, I went with my default philosophy for debugging computer issues.

IF I CAN DUPLICATE IT, I CAN SOLVE IT!!!

Unfortunately things don’t always work out

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Visual Explain for Run SQL Scripts

October 22, 2008 Skip Marchesani

The Run SQL Scripts function, a.k.a. the SQL Script Center or Script Center, allows the user to execute all or a subset of a script that contains one or more SQL statements and/or batch CL commands. It is part of the Navigator Database function and is an extremely powerful and flexible tool with lots of function that can have a very positive impact on application developer productivity.

One of these functions is Visual Explain, which is used to investigate and improve the performance of SQL statements. Visual Explain creates a query graph or diagram that graphically displays the execution of

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SQL Quickly and Dirtily Extracts a Field from a CSV File

October 22, 2008 Ted Holt

A colleague and I were recently tracking the way data progresses through a poorly documented information system. We were trying to determine at which point in the process a certain field’s decimal positions were being discarded. We began at the beginning, which happened to be a CSV file from a PC-based system. How could we quickly determine whether or not the CSV file had values in the decimal positions of the seventh field?

We used SQL. I’ll provide a simple illustration. Here are the commands, in case you want to try this yourself.

Let’s first create a CSV file we

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Healing Failed Windows-i5/OS FTP Transfers

October 22, 2008 Hey, Joe

I tried running the attached FTP script to automatically transfer AS/400 Integrated File System (AS/400 IFS) files to a Windows server, but I can’t get it to work. I can run my transfer commands manually but not automatically. Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?

–Dave

Thanks, Dave. I’ll give it a shot. Here’s the FTP script that you sent me.

OPEN system_name
USERNAME
PASSWORD
CD /ifs_directory_name
LCD C:directory_name
MGET *.*
QUIT

Here’s the Windows FTP command that you’re using to run the script.

ftp -s:getfile.scr system_name

Once you run the command, you get the following FTP error:

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Displaying Multiple Results Sets in Run SQL Scripts

October 15, 2008 Skip Marchesani

The SQL Script Center, which is part of the System i Navigator Database function, allows the user to execute a script that contains single or multiple SQL statements. If the script contains multiple SQL statements, the user has the option of executing a single SQL statement, the entire script (starting with first statement in the script and ending with the last statement in the script) or two or more consecutive SQL statements as a subset of the script.

The results from executing an SQL statement are shown in the lower portion of the Run SQL Scripts window called the Output

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A Practical Way to Add Exports to a Service Program

October 15, 2008 Ted Holt

My life was confusing enough already. Then along came IBM with binder language, the CL-like language we use to define the list of exports of a service program. Awhile back I sat down to try to find an effective way to deal with service program exports. Here’s what I came up with.

When you create a service program, you must list the exports, that is, the data and/or modules that are available to callers. There is a shortcut. If you specify EXPORT(*ALL) in the Create Service Program (CRTSRVPGM) command, the system will generate the list of exports for you. However,

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Admin Alert: Preventing Multiple IPs from Stopping Internet Traffic

October 15, 2008 Joe Hertvik

We recently added a second IP interface to one of our i5/OS partitions. After an IPL, the partition stopped talking to Internet-based trading partners. It stopped trading FTP files with outside vendors, it wouldn’t relay email, and it generally stopped talking to the outside world. This week, I’ll look at the common problem that took down our Internet communications and how you can stop it from happening in your shop.

A Case Study in Configuring for Multiple IPs

After the configuration change, we had two IP interfaces on our partition: one for all our normal IP traffic (10.3.1.55); and a

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Want a Fast and Easy Way To Sort Subfile Data?

October 8, 2008 Susan Gantner

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

Sorting data is something RPG programs often need to do. If it’s just a simple single field array you’re sorting in order to use the much faster binary search possible with %Lookup, for example, then SORTA works well and is simple. But what if it is a more complex task like sorting the data in a subfile on a user-selected column? Surely you need some more involved techniques, such as retrieving the data from the database again using a different ORDER BY on an SQL SELECT statement or

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Testing for Valid Data Representation in SQL

October 8, 2008 Hey Mike

How can I tell if a character column contains a valid representation of numeric data? I have a column expression in a Select statement that needs to convert character Column A to numeric only when it contains a valid numeric representation. If Column A doesn’t contain a numeric representation, then I need to convert Column B to numeric.

—FHG reader

Testing for valid numeric representation is an important task. The problem is that casting character data to numeric will result in a run time error if the data is invalid and therefore it is appropriate to test the data

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Admin Alert: When System Job Tables Attack, Part III

October 8, 2008 Joe Hertvik

In the last two issues, I discussed i5/OS problems that occur with system job table overflows, and how overflows can hurt your system. This week, I’m wrapping up the series by going over my own recent experience with job table overflows. I’ll also share some excellent reader advice on job tables that’s been coming into my mailbox lately.

What Are System Job Tables; The Short Version

System job tables are internal system objects that i5/OS uses to track partition jobs. There can be up to 10 job tables on a partition, and the maximum number of system jobs

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