FHG Volume: 7 Archives - Page 8 of 14

Load a Spreadsheet from a DB2/400 Database

June 6, 2007 Hey, Ted

I know from my reading that it is possible to make an Excel spreadsheet read from an iSeries database. I’ve been an RPG programmer for years, and I don’t know where to start. Can you point me in the right direction?

–“D”

I’ll do my best. I have some Visual Basic code that I’ve used for years that I can share with you. I wish I could give credit to the original author, but I don’t remember where I got it.

First, crank up a new Excel spreadsheet. Pull down the Tools menu, select Macro, then Visual Basic Editor. The

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Admin Alert: Weird i5 User Profile Sign-On Secrets

June 6, 2007 Joe Hertvik

i5/OS can be a little quirky when it comes to user profiles. There are little-known facets to System i profile management (some call them loopholes) that allow users to perform system sign-on tricks that are technically not allowed by the operating system. This week, I’ll focus on a few i5 quirks you may not have known about and how they can affect your user sign-ons.

Quirk #1: You can’t create a system i user profile name that starts with a number but you can sign on with a user profile name that begins with a number. In several systems besides

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Send a Spool File from AS/400 with a Specific Subject Line and Message Body

May 23, 2007 Hey, Ted

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

A while back, I was working on a project that required an e-mail to be sent with a resulting spool file as an attachment and with a specific subject line and specific message body. I had no trouble figuring out how to send the spool file as a document and how to create the message body. The hard part was customizing the subject line of the e-mail. This was important because the subject line would have provided the users a hint about the urgency of the task they

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Searching for Wildcard Characters

May 23, 2007 Ted Holt

If you happen to see a bald-headed old geezer staring at a shelf at the local home-improvement warehouse (motto: you can do it; we can laugh), that’s me. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’m foolish enough to think I’ll recognize it when I see it. My methodology is something like searching a database using wildcard characters, which is what today’s tip is about.

You probably know that database query interfaces typically allow for two types of wildcards: a wildcard that matches exactly one character; and a wildcard that matches zero or more characters. In SQL, my database

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Admin Alert: i5 IPL Pre-Planning and Post-Planning Checklists

May 23, 2007 Joe Hertvik

Unlike Windows servers, which can be rebooted several times a year, i5, iSeries, and AS/400 partitions are so legendarily reliable that IPLing one can become an event. And like any good event, it takes some planning to prepare for the opportunities and risks an IPL presents. To aid you in that planning, here’s my list of things to consider when you’re ready to restart a partition.

The IPL Roadmap

For the uninitiated, an i5/OS IPL is similar to a Windows reboot, which is when the operating system and machine are taken down and restarted. During an i5 restart, PTFs (operating

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Groovy: A Powerful Scripting Language for Java Developers on System i

May 16, 2007 Mike Brown

When programmers are put in a situation to develop and deploy applications for a new environment, they tend to look for familiar tools to use. An example might be a text editor that is similar to something that has been used in the past. Another example might be the command line environment (sometimes referred to as a “shell”) such as Bash in the Unix/Linux world. IBM provides QShell on the System i as a basic command line environment. However, if you are accustomed to the Unix/Linux world, a lot of utilities that you may be used to may be missing.

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Old Programs Can Learn to Behave Themselves

May 16, 2007 Ted Holt

As far as I know, nothing disastrous has ever come of a truncation error in one of my programs. Nevertheless, I’m embarrassed when someone points out that a total figure does not equal the sum of the column of numbers above it. RPG’s EVAL opcode generates a hard error if high-order numeric truncation occurs. We can use the MONITOR opcode to trap EVAL’s truncation errors. But what about all those programs that use antique op codes like ADD, SUB, MULT, and DIV?

You can easily make those op codes raise errors upon truncation. Let’s see how it’s done. Here’s an

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Another Way to Retrieve i5 System Storage Space

May 16, 2007 Hey, Joe

You should adjust your focus in your article on retrieving system storage space. The first step in dealing with critical storage errors is not to clear up past problems. The first step is to understand where the space is being used now. The Retrieve Disk Information command and the Print Disk Information command are valuable in finding storage hogs, particularly in the Integrated File System (IFS). Maybe you should explore this possibility, too.

–Rob

Not being familiar with the Retrieve Disk Information (RTVDSKINF) and Print Disk Information (PRTDSKINF) commands, I decided to run these commands on my system and

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WHERE Versus HAVING

May 9, 2007 Hey, Ted

What is the purpose of SQL’s HAVING operator? It seems to me to be unnecessary, since the WHERE operator can choose which records are to be included in the query. What am I missing?

–Rich

Don’t sweat it, Rich. This is a very common point of confusion. Let me try to straighten it out for you, and in the process I’ll add a tip that some of the more experienced readers may not have seen before.

Sometimes you can get the same result either WHERE or HAVING. The following two SQL commands produce the same result set. That is, both

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Error-Checking Email Addresses, for Intelligent People

May 9, 2007 Ted Holt

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

Dear Intelligent Colleague:

I’ve been less than impressed with the results of keying invalid email addresses into database files, mainly because I’ve had to deal with some of that undeliverable email. I recently wrote a little RPG routine that checks for glaring errors in an email address. The people for whom I wrote it liked it and thought that you might find it helpful too.

My routine enforces the following few rules:

* No leading or embedded blanks.
* No question marks, exclamation points, or slashes.
*

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