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

I had the great pleasure of meeting Brian Rusch in Milwaukee last month, when I spoke to the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professionals Association (WMCPA). Brian told me about the method his shop uses to handle CL program exceptions. I’d like to share it with you.

IBM has established an architecture for exception handling. When a program exception occurs, the system may send one or more diagnostic messages that give information about the error. The system does send an escape message, which summarizes the problem and cancels the program.

I have a strange SQL problem. I have an SQL DELETE command that works perfectly in interactive SQL. But when I use Run SQL Statement (RUNSQLSTM) to execute it, it does not find any rows to delete.

–Jabir

Strange, indeed. I gave Jabir some suggestions, but none of them helped. Jabir found his problem himself. In one of those environments (he didn’t say which), the date format was *MDY, while the date format of the other one was *DMY. SQL was interpreting a date value in two different ways. It’s fortunate that Jabir did not test with a date that

IBM i operating systems contain a number of attributes that are used to control IPL processing when you start or restart a partition. Some attributes (such as Start To Restricted State) are well-known, while others are seldom looked at. This week, let’s take a look at your system’s IPL attributes and how they can help you perform specific functions on your system.

Viewing And Changing Your IPL Parameters

You can view and change your IPL parameters by typing in the Change IPL Attributes (CHGIPLA) command from a 5250 green screen and pressing the F4 key. When you do this, you’ll