FHG Volume: 14 Archives - Page 8 of 9

The ADO Client Side Of Default Parameters And Named Arguments In DB2 For i

February 26, 2014 Michael Sansoterra

In Stored Procedure Parameter Defaults And Named Arguments In DB2 For i, I covered two new related features in DB2 for i 7.1 that were implemented in Technology Refresh 5 (DB2 for i Group PTF Level 18 or higher). In this tip, I’m going to cover a surprising limitation of this feature when coding in an ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) environment, whether using an IBM DB2 OLE DB provider or the iSeries Access ODBC provider.

Recall that stored procedure parameters now support a DEFAULT keyword that can be a literal, subquery, or expression (with limitations):

CREATE PROCEDURE DEV.CREATE_ORDER (

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The Case Of The IBM Systems Director And RBAC

February 26, 2014 Jeff Waldbillig

It was a dark night on a network that knew how to keep its secrets. Actually, that was last night. Today was going to be a busy day working on the network that knew how to keep its secrets. I’d been temporarily moved from my nightshift role at the help desk to the daylight hours to cover for a coworker who was out with an extended illness, but I was beginning to wonder if my late-night auction surfing had attracted some attention I did not need.

My phone rang, and I paused for a moment as I considered that this

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Admin Alert: Saying Goodbye To An Old Power i

February 12, 2014 Joe Hertvik

IBM first introduced Power 7 servers running IBM i on February 8, 2010. So if you leased one of those machines, chances are good that it’s either coming off lease soon or about to come off lease. If you’re ready to say goodbye to an old Power i, here’s seven things to do before you return that old machine to the leasing company.

The Big Seven

There are seven things you need to do before you can return an end-of-lease machine to a leasing company.

Replace it.
End the lease.
End extended maintenance (if relevant).
Inventory the machine.
Wipe or

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DB2 For i Odds And Ends

February 12, 2014 Michael Sansoterra

IBM i 7.1 and its various incremental releases have introduced many great new features in DB2 for i. Many of the features have been covered in Four Hundred Guru tips. This tip will cover some of the less exciting, yet important features that may have gone unnoticed. Best of all, many of them are even available in IBM i 6.1.

Specify System PROGRAM NAME Keyword When Creating An SQL Trigger To Prevent Naming Conflicts For System Names

Consider the following CREATE TRIGGER statement that features a long SQL name:

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER ADVWORKS08.UpdateSalesOrderHeaderModifedDate
AFTER UPDATE ON ADVWORKS08.SalesOrderDetail
REFERENCING NEW_TABLE

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Four Reasons RPG Geezers Should Care About The New Free-Form RPG

February 12, 2014 Jon Paris

By now you have probably heard that with the latest V7 changes to RPG IV, we can code completely free-form programs. But why should you care? Maybe you saw the benefit of free-form calcs and have been using them for some time, but you still can’t see why you should bother with learning this new way of coding D, F, and P specs. What’s the point? Well, I’m going to share my thoughts on that subject.

On my last birthday, I officially became a geezer (i.e., senior citizen if we want to be polite), so with some 45-plus years of

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The Case Of The Late Night FSM Explorer

January 29, 2014 Jeff Waldbillig

It was a quiet night on a network that knew how to keep its secrets. I was working the graveyard shift at the help desk, and this night I was still waiting for my first call. Marge Stetson, my supervisor, walked by and after seeing the glazed look in my eyes, told me she’d cover the phones for a few hours if I wanted to do some technical education.

Marge knew that a product called the IBM Flex Systems Manager (FSM) was being deployed in our network, and she expected us to field some questions in the next few weeks

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DB2 For i, Java, And Regular Expressions

January 29, 2014 Michael Sansoterra

In today’s world, IBM i developers often find themselves working with more than the relational data stored inside their trusty DB2 database. Coders can find themselves tasked with parsing many kinds of text data including: SMTP email, file contents of an IFS Folder, Java Properties files, free form comments imported from other systems, OCR data for invoices, resumes, XML, HTML, code fragments (RPG, COBOL, C, Java, SQL, VBA), and application logs.

While there are many tools available to examine plain text, a regular expression engine provides one of the best generic text processing engines available.

Yipes, it’s been over 10

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Admin Alert: Four Ways To Move An IBM i Partition, Part 3

January 29, 2014 Joe Hertvik

The last two issues, I’ve discussed different ways to move an IBM i partition from one location to another. I talked about using traditional backup and restore techniques, as well as using logical replication High Availability (HA) software for partition migration. This week, let’s finish the series by looking at using externally connected storage including SANs, PowerHA SystemMirror for IBM, and Live Partition Mobility for moving partitions.

The Four Ways To Move An IBM i Partition

To recap, there are four basic ways to move an IBM i partition.

Restore the partition in place or to a new location using

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Dynamic Compound Statements In DB2 For i

January 15, 2014 Michael Sansoterra

Dynamic compound statements are sure to be one of the most oft used new SQL features in IBM i 7.1. In general, this feature allows developers to execute a complex set of SQL statements that include variable use, error handling, and conditional logic on the fly without creating a permanent SQL routine such as a function or stored procedure.

Dynamic compound statements makes DB2 similar to other database platforms like SQL Server where SQL scripts can be written and executed on the fly. This feature comes in DB2 for i group PTF level 26, so make sure your database PTFs

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Admin Alert: Four Ways To Move An IBM i Partition, Part 2

January 15, 2014 Joe Hertvik

In December, I began discussing four different approaches for moving an IBM i partition from an existing machine to a new location and the different tasks needed for each technique. I talked about using traditional system back-up and restore migration techniques last issue. This issue, I’ll focus on using high availability (HA) software to migrate a partition.

Four Ways To Move An IBM i

To review, there are four techniques for moving an IBM i partition to a different machine: