• Numbering Rows in an SQL Result Set

  December 14, 2005 Ted Holt

  The code for this article is available for download.

  As I said on in an issue a few weeks ago, I like functions a lot. In this article, I present an SQL scalar function I wrote a few years ago that has proven itself to be handy. Consider it a Christmas present from Four Hundred Guru. I ho-ho-hope you like it.

  

  I call the function INCR, which is short for “increment.” I wrote it as a way to number the rows returned by an SQL SELECT query. INCR takes one parameter, a number that is one less than

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• List Signed On Users From a Web Page

  December 14, 2005 Shannon O'Donnell

  The code for this article is available for download.

  If you are like me, you receive support calls at the most inconvenient times. For example, when you are at a conference and you don’t have access to your own PC. Many times these calls are simply related to poor system performance, and I could resolve some of these issues simply by knowing who is signed on to my system. There are a few users in my company, probably like there are in your own, who are notorious for running complex queries or submitting the same job over and over

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• Admin Alert: The Great i5/OS Job Hunt

  December 14, 2005 Joe Hertvik

  When running an OS/400 or i5/OS help desk, it’s not always possible to know which jobs need troubleshooting. Users can provide sketchy information when calling in, and you may not be able to view a troubled session or to remotely log on to user systems to check out problems for yourself. Many times, your first job in helping a user is to determine which job actually has the problem.

  

  To that end, here are some tips for quickly finding batch or interactive jobs on your i5, iSeries, or OS/400 systems. These tips were tested by using i5/OS V5R3, but most

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• Find the Length of a Character String in CL, Take Two

  December 7, 2005 Hey, Ted

  Just yesterday, I was trying to determine the length of the value of a CL variable, so your tip today using the MSGDTA trick was helpful. I was thinking that IBM had added %TRIM and %LEN to the list of CL built-in functions (BIFs) that exist in recent releases, but I guess I was imagining this. Why hasn’t IBM done this, with all the other great enhancements to CL recently? Is there a way to add your own BIFs to CL by creating your own commands?

  –Flagler

  

  I have long advocated the creation of commands to extend the CL language,

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• Installing WebSphere Application Server 6.0

  December 7, 2005 Hey, Brian

  Earlier this year, I installed WebSphere Application Express Server Version 5.1 on our iSeries 270; the software came with my OS/400 V5R3 upgrade. I used your book, The iSeries Express Web Implementor’s Guide, which I purchased at the IT Jungle Bookstore, to help understand what the WebSphere Express server really was all about. Then, after I thought I understood what I needed to do, I used the normal IBM command RSTLICPGM to install WebSphere Application Express Server Version 5.1, or as you refer to it as WAS 5.1 Express. After running the RSTLICPGM, to make sure it was installed,

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• Admin Alert: Backing Up i5/OS Partitions to Disk

  December 7, 2005 Joe Hertvik

  Sometimes it’s neither practical nor possible to save OS/400 data to media on a regular basis. I experienced this recently as I was developing a new partition and all my regular tape drives were allocated to nightly backups. With development happening during the day and no media to back up the system to at night, I had to find another backup solution. The answer I came up with was to back up our data to disk for later transfer to tape or another system.

  

  Backing up data to disk storage before transferring it to tape isn’t necessarily the most elegant

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• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Converting Dates

  November 30, 2005 Bruce Guetzkow

  The code for this article is available for download.

  Although the date data type field has been around for several years now, many of us still have dates stored in our database as numeric or alpha fields. We’ve all used various ways to convert those dates to other formats so they are more human-readable or to comply with client or vendor needs: data structures, move left and move right, the infamous multiplication with truncation trick. While we may not use the date data type in the database, we can still use the date data type to simplify converting dates.

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• Editing Numbers in CL, Take Two

  November 30, 2005 Hey, Ted

  I just read Cletus’ tip on the editing of numbers in CL procedures, called Editing Numbers in CL. I will add these techniques to my tool kit. As always, thanks for the great stuff. Here’s another method I’ve used to remove leading blanks from numbers in CL.

  –Russ

  

  Russ’s method uses a message description that has a four-byte binary variable. Here’s how it works. (This following code is mine, not his, so any mistakes are also mine.)

  Let’s use the example from the previous article. Variable &CustOrders contains the number of orders that have been added to a database file.

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• Selectively Deleting OS/400 Spool Files

  November 30, 2005 Hey, Joe

  My users insist on saving labels and printouts after they are printed. And the worst part is that I can’t just clear the output queues containing these spooled files because the company is asking me to keep the most recent spooled files for 30 days. Do you have any idea how I can selectively delete spooled files in an output queue that are more than 30 days old while leaving more recent printouts intact?

  –Simon

  

  While i5/OS and OS/400 provide options for automatically deleting system joblogs and other system output after a set number of days, there is no option

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• API Corner: Backup APIs

  November 16, 2005 Shannon O'Donnell

  The code for this article is available for download.

  In this issue of API Corner, I am going to show you how to use some of the Backup APIs, which you can then use to programmatically determine when certain objects, such as libraries and files, were last backed up. Specifically, I will cover the Backup History, Backup Detail, and the Backup Schedule APIs.

  

  The Backup APIs

  The Backup and Recovery APIs make working with backup information much easier than trying to use *OUTFILES from such IBM commands as DSPOBJD (Display Object Description). When you use the backup APIs, you

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