If I could use one word to describe the new DB2 for i OLAP features in IBM i 7.3, it would be “Booyah”! (According to the Urban dictionary, “booyah” is “used in order to abruptly express great joy, usually brought on by victory or some other sort of accomplishment.”) Though there are many new features in i 7.3 under the umbrella of OLAP, for now I’m going to demonstrate the new OLAP aggregation specification.

It was way back in 2006 in V5R4 that DB2 for i developers were first treated to OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) functions. If you’re unfamiliar with

In Sending Escape Messages from RPG, your program defines the message data parameter as 80 bytes, but the IBM manual (Send Program Message (QMHSNDPM)) defines the parameter as char(*), with notes saying it can be up to 32767. I would like a variable longer than 80, but instead of coding 100 today, 120 next project, and so on, I’m wondering how I could code it better to take full advantage of the API.

–Glenn

The short answer is that you don’t have to code the length. Let the compiler figure it out for you. Here’s an illustration that may

I’m always surprised at how well-attended my RDi debugging presentations are. After all, once you know about service entry points, there’s not a huge amount that’s new and radically different about debugging, even with RDi. Then again, I’m constantly learning new things. Here’s something I learned just last week, in fact.

Let’s assume that you already have a debug session running on the troublesome program and we’ll look at setting and using breakpoints. The most obvious and common way to set one is to position your cursor on the statement where you want it. From there, you can use