V5R3 SQL Enhancements

June 30, 2004 Michael Sansoterra

Like a kid at Christmas, with every release of OS/400 (now i5/OS), I’m always eager to find out what enhancements IBM has made to SQL. Once again, IBM has been very good to SQL programmers with this latest release. Here is a review of many of the latest enhancements to SQL.

DISCLAIMER

Since I don’t yet have access to a machine with V5R3, this information was gleaned from the new V5R3 manuals and may be subject to revision if I interpreted something incorrectly! Where possible, I tried to validate the syntax of the material by testing some of these features

Secure Spool File Management

June 30, 2004 Hey, Wayne O.

I want to allow a user to view spool files that were created by other users. Is there a way to allow this access without giving the user *SPLCTL or *JOBCTL special authority? I am trying to implement your recommendation that users should have no command line access or special authority.

–Jeannette

I get this request very often. Most installations take the easy way out and give users *JOBCTL or *SPLCTL. This works well in a low security environment, but in a financial institution you need to be very careful about what output you allow users to view.

Before I

Eliminate Unnecessary Access Paths

June 30, 2004 Hey, Ted

One could make the case that computing is of two types: CPU- and I/O-intensive. An example of the former is the generation of graphics for a movie. An example of the latter is information technology. This means that iSeries shops looking to improve performance should concentrate on reducing the amount of I/O that must take place.

Think about what happens when a record is added to, deleted from, or changed in a physical file. The database manager must examine every access path built over the file and adjust any that are affected by changes to the file. The more access