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

RPG IV’s built-in XML support has been available for some time now, having been originally introduced with V5R4 back in 2006. Due to deficiencies in that release, many RPG’ers chose not to use RPG to process XML. Fortunately, IBM has corrected those deficiencies, and RPG provides a smart way to read XML. Here’s how it’s done.

In that first release, the most powerful of the op codes, XML-INTO, had some gaps in its support that sometimes made it difficult to use without pre-processing the XML. In addition, the

I often sit and ponder the mysteries of life. For example, why do some people use C to write business applications? Why does the text of message SQL6789 end in a period instead of a question mark? And, recently, why do people circumvent powerful features of the robust IBM i operating system? Let me show you what I mean.

The circumvented feature that is on my mind at present is the library list. In case you’re new to the IBM i world, the library list is a list of libraries that the system searches when looking for an object. It’s

The IBM i is one of the easiest to maintain operating systems going. A big part of that is because IBM provides the hardware, operating system, and updates. Clearly the number of permutations are reduced dramatically. In addition, some problematic areas, such as video drivers, simply don’t exist in IBM i. So that’s it then, no need to update because we live in Utopia, right? Well, not so fast!

Just because IBM provides all the pieces doesn’t mean they are either perfect or complete. Besides, there are many components and these are constantly being updated. Two examples are node.js and