• Two Handy Programs

  November 16, 2005 Ted Holt

  I get quite a bit of email from readers who say they have found something in Four Hundred Guru to be of help to them. I appreciate their taking time to let me know. Today I present two CL programs that I would be hard-pressed to do without. I hope some of you will find them helpful too.

  

  Here’s the first one, DUMMY1.

  pgm   
  return
  

  Do you like it? At two lines, it would be hard to make a keying error when typing it in, wouldn’t it? I don’t think it matters what activation group it runs in, but I

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• Admin Alert: Darn Good FTP Commands You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

  November 16, 2005 Joe Hertvik

  While most i5/OS and OS/400 administrators are familiar with using FTP for file transfers between i5, iSeries, AS/400, Windows, Linux, and Unix machines, they may not be familiar with a number of valuable OS/400 FTP subcommands that can make their FTP transfers run more efficiently. To that end, let’s look at some lesser-known OS/400 FTP subcommands that can make a big difference when you are transferring data.

  

  Please note that this article was written and tested in an i5/OS V5RX environment, and that you may see some differences running these subcommands in earlier OS/400 versions.

  QUOTE TIME xxxx yyyy:

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• A Handy RPG FUNction

  November 9, 2005 Ted Holt

  I like functions. I like the ones built into RPG, like %SUBST and %DATE and %CHAR and %FOUND. I like the ones built into SQL, like UPPER and DIGITS. Functions accomplish a lot of work with little effort because the code inside a function does not need to be included in the routines that call the function. I enjoy writing my own functions and using them in my programming. Today, I’m going to share a function I recently wrote that is proving to be useful to me. You may like it, too.

  

  Not long ago, I was working on an

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• Edit Spooled Files with SEU

  November 9, 2005 Hey, Ted

  I read your articles on spool file manipulation. (This refers to two articles: Reading Spool Files in RPG and Page 1 of X.) Actually, it’s even easier in SEU.

  –Don Rima

  

  If the name Don Rima sounds familiar to you, it should. Don is well known for his product reviews in the iSeries edition of eServer Magazine and as the president of the Washington Area Midrange iSeries user group. Here is Don’s technique for editing a spooled file with SEU (or any other source-code editor).

  1. Create a program-described non-source physical file member (unless you already have a suitable

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• Admin Alert: Use Remote Output Queues to Share Printers Between Partitions

  November 9, 2005 Joe Hertvik

  With many shops running multi-partition i5 or iSeries boxes, writers and remote printers can become an issue between partitions. It’s not practical to create and manage two or more writers that point to the same physical printer on different partitions, because duplicate printers on different partitions can interfere with each other. Fortunately, i5/OS has a handy solution for sending spooled files from different partitions to the same printer: two remote output queues working in tandem.

  

  Using two remote output queues, you can easily set up one output queue on the first partition to send i5/OS spooled files to an ASCII

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• Be Sure Qshell Accesses the Right IFS Data

  November 2, 2005 Ted Holt

  Today I continue my relentless Campaign to Eradicate Unreliable Software. Just recently, I saw a real-life example of the problem of unreliability. Program A called Program B to change the library list. Program B failed, the library list did not get changed, but Program B never bothered to tell Program A about it. Program A continued running with the wrong library list. As I wrote in Proper CL Error Handling, it’s imperative to catch every error and make sure that it is dealt with.

  

  The same sort of thing can happen in Qshell scripts. If a Change Directory command

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• Restricted Access to SST

  November 2, 2005 Hey, Wayne O

  I want to set up two users to access the Start System Service Tools (STRSST) command. Is there a way to set them up so they can not change anything–that is, in view only mode? I want them to access the Analyze Log function only.

  –Reza

  

  I have good news for you. IBM added some additional controls in V5R2 to provide the exact function you want.

  As a security officer, start SST. This will require you to enter the SST password, which is case sensitive. Then, take the following actions:

  1. Create SST profiles for the two users. I recommend

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• Admin Alert: Hidden Secrets of the i5/OS Save Commands

  November 2, 2005 Joe Hertvik

  How well do you know your OS/400 and i5/OS backup commands? Did you know that there are a number of lesser known backup parameters that enable backup operations to run faster, protect media during its retention cycle, specify date ranges for backing up changed data, and provide valuable information on your backup operation? This week, let’s look at some underused backup parameters and how they can make your life easier.

  

  Most of the parameters I’ll discuss here are included in IBM‘s SAVxxx commands that control i5/OS and OS/400 backup operations. These commands include the two Save Object commands

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• How to Count with SQL

  October 26, 2005 Ted Holt

  SQL can count two ways–vertically and horizontally. Anybody who uses SQL for data retrieval should know both methods. If you use SQL and don’t know how to count both ways, you’re in luck, because I’m about to explain both techniques.

  Let’s consider vertical counting first because it’s the easier method. To count vertically, use the COUNT function and the GROUP BY clause. To illustrate, I’ll count records in my favorite database file QIWS/QCUSTCDT. You can find this file on your system, but to save you the trouble, here’s the data we’ll be using.

  LSTNAM    INIT  STATE  CHGCOD
  Henning   G K    

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• Those Stupid Quotation Marks!

  October 26, 2005 Hey, Ted

  I am attempting to use QCMDEXC to run Open Query File within an RPG IV program but the compiler generates errors RNF0312 (A right parenthesis is expected but is not found) and RNF5347 (An assignment operator is expected with the EVAL operation). Do you see anything wrong with my code?

  –PG

  Here’s the free-format RPG code PG sent me. (The file and field names have been changed to protect the guilty.)

  @qcmdexec('OPNQRYF FILE((MYFILE)) QRYSLT('FLD *EQ %WLDCRD("*AA*")')');
  

  PG is trying to select all records in file MYFILE that have AA anywhere in field FLD. PG’s problem is that he (she?) has

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