When I wrote about the Db2 for i, or SQL, scalar function to create a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in the IFS my example program ran interactively. I recently received a message asking the following: "good stuff even though I started to use it, it has some limitations so far: doesn't work with QTEMP files. Am I right?" I submitted my example program to batch and found that the expected spreadsheet was not generated. Looking in the job's job log I could see several messages related to files I created in QTEMP not being found. It would appear that the Java called by the GENERATE_SPREADSHEET subm ..read more

What I call totally free RPG and what IBM calls modern RPG has been around for nine years. This type of RPG always needs the **FREE directive starting in the first position of the source line. And what follows is the free form RPG, where the source line can start in any position. ...+... 1 ...+... 2 ...+... 3 ...+... 4 ...+... 5 ...+... 6 ...+... 7 ...+... 8 01 **free 02 dcl-s Statement1 varchar(100) inz('Entered in free format RPG') ; Marc Raynor informed me of another directive that "ends" the free format RPG, **END-FREE. After that directive all valid RPG must be entered in t ..read more

I want to thank Shaker Steven for bringing to my attention this morning that the Spring 2024 update for Access Client Solutions, ACS, is now available. When I opened my ACS the following window popped up informing me the new update was available. Read more ..read more

In the western Christian calendar today is a special day for everyone working in information Technology, as it is Saint Isidore of Seville saint's day. St Isidore of Seville is special to the IT community as in 1997 he was made patron saint of all things related to computers and IT by Pope John Paul II. You can learn more about Isidore here. Happy St Isidore of Seville day, and let's hope for a little divine intervention so all of our IT projects in the next year complete successfully, on time, and on budget. "Looking at his example it looks so easy. Gratias tibi RPGPGM.COM ..read more

I have one presentation this month where I will be talking to my friends at the OCEAN user group of Southern California, on April 17 at 12:00 PM (PT). I will be sharing my favorite SQL features and functions. This meeting is online and free to everyone. Learn more and register here. If you are a member of an IBM i Local User Group, LUG, and you would like me to talk to your group, use the contact form to reach me. We can then arrange a date and subject. If you are a member of a LUG that is not listed on my LUG page, please contact me and send me your group's details ..read more

We have been able to send email from our IBM i partitions for several releases, using IBM commands and various third party tools. I use the Send SMTP Email command, SNDSMTPEMM, that comes within the IBM i operating system. Within the latest round of Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR3 and 7.4 TR9, comes another way, with SQL. A new scalar function was added to the SYSTOOLS library called SEND_EMAIL. It has four parameters: TO_EMAIL:  Recipients email address. Mandatory SUBJECT:  Email's subject line. Mandatory BODY:  Email's body. Mandatory ATTACHMENT: IFS path name of the fil ..read more

This post is to take care of an oversight that was brought to my attention. I have written several posts about using the SQL three part name, all of the examples assumed that the user name and password were the same on all of the partitions. What happens if they are not? This post will explain what to do. For these examples I am using three partitions: DEV740: This partition is running IBM i 7.4, and is the "local" partition, the one I am performing all the calls from DEV730: Runs IBM i 7.3. When the connection was configured on DEV740 to DEV730 the serial number was used, therefore, DEV730 ..read more

The idea for this post came from a Facebook thread. The question was: "Does anyone know of a way to insert the result of an SQL SELECT into a CL Variable? I can make an SQL select into a table and read (RCVF) the file of course... But can it be done in a more "direct" way?" One of the replies to the question piqued my interest. Before I start showing examples of code I needed a SQL statement that anyone with a recent release of IBM i could execute in their partitions. I came up with retrieving the record length for the SYSDUMMY1 table. I find the easiest way to get that information is to use ..read more

There are times when IBM updates a SQL View to add information to it that makes more useful and easier to use than it was before. In the last round of Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR3 and 7.4 TR9, came the addition of columns to the View that we can use to retrieve information about system values. The added rows doubled the number of columns in the View, by all means it previously had just a few rows. The SYSTEM_VALUE_INFO View was introduced as part of IBM i 7.2 and 7.1. I have primarily used it for comparing the system values in different partitions that is an audit requirement. I could ..read more

The next meeting of the Central Texas IBM i User Group is on Tuesday March 5 at 6:30 PM (CT). The guest presenter will be Gregory Simmons, who will be talking about Procedure driven RPG. This meeting is online and free to everyone. You learn more and register here. If you are a member of an IBM i Local User Group, LUG, and you would like me to talk to your group, use the contact form to reach me. We can then arrange a date and subject. If you are a member of a LUG that is not listed on my LUG page, please contact me and send me your group's details ..read more