Reader Feedback and Insights: Another Compression Utility

October 18, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, Ted:

There’s another free compression utility that can do the same good work on save files . It’s part of a free download from IBM .

The utility is called gzip, and it’s a part of GNU Tools. The GNU utilities can be downloaded at IBM’s Application Factory – Porting: GNU utilities download page . It appears it might be bundled with WDS V5R1.

Gzip runs in Qshell, but it is a link to a *PGM object. I’ve been able to make a copy of GNU/GZIP and call it. Just put each option-value pair inside apostrophes or single quote

Reading Spool Files in RPG

October 18, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, Ted:

I have a problem similar to the one you solved in the February 27, 2002, issue of Midrange Guru. I wish to copy a spooled file that has been produced by a package, run an RPG program to modify the output, and build a new spooled file. In that example, you specified CTLCHAR(*FCFC) in the Copy Spooled File (CPYSPLF) command in order to use first-character form control characters. Can an RPG program interpret those characters and generate a new spool file with the same spacing?

— Joe

If you only want to modify the lines and reprint

Hex Dump of an IFS File

October 18, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, Ted:

How can I get a hexadecimal dump of an IFS file?

— Charles

Use the od utility, which runs under Qshell. Use the t option to tell od which format(s) you want to see. Here’s a list of all the formats you can request.

• a, c character
• d signed decimal
• f floating point
• o octal
• u unsigned decimal
• x hexadecimal

To display a file in hexadecimal, follow the t option with an x.

I can illustrate with a simple text file, which I’ll call err.log. The CCSID attribute is 37, which means the data is stored in EBCDIC.