Dealing With Library Lists In RDi

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

Today I follow up on a topic that Susan Gantner covered a few years ago, namely, how to more easily manage the library list while working in Rational Developer for i (RDi). It turns out that a couple of commands I wrote for green-screen work years ago are even more useful in my GUI development environment.

When you start RDi, the library list is set according to your user profile, but you can override the initial library list in the connection properties. As you work, you may want to add and remove libraries. One way to do that is to right-click on the Library list entry under your connection in the navigation pane.

You can also right-click on the name of a library to get a similar menu.

If you want to do major surgery to the library list, you can run the Change Library List (CHGLIBL) command within the RDi session.

So where’s the middle ground? What if you only want to add a few libraries to the top of the library list without replacing the entire list?

Years ago–I think it was even before WDSc came on the scene–I wrote two commands to allow me to quickly add libraries to the front or end of the library list. They have served me well–and continue to serve me well–in the green-screen world, and I find them even handier in RDi. The commands are LLF and LLL. The first two letters stand for library list and the last letter is short for first and last.

Here are some examples: