We recently acquired a company that has had its own payroll system for many years. We are going to combine the two payrolls starting next year but in the meantime, we would like to be able to use some of our internal cost analysis programs on the combined data without combining the two files.

We have created an earning master physical file in which we are staging the data that we will use to merge the two systems next year. This file has the exact shape as our current payroll master file. Without creating another file and physically merging them,

Don’t Disable Blocking was a good article. I would like to offer two suggestions for improvement.

First RPG ILE provides a BLOCK(*YES) file level keyword, which allows compiler-generated blocking when a random I/O operation is issued to a file processed sequentially using a READ. The most common scenario is “Keylist SETxx SomeFile” followed by READ. Note that READE is not treated as a sequential operation.

Second, I am a little disappointed that after your breakthrough OPNQRYF to SQL article using a SPECIAL device, you didn’t recommend the same approach for this situation. SQL automatically generates efficient blocking instructions for

Last week, I began discussing the pitfalls you may encounter when buying a new System i server. This week, I’ll continue the discussion by looking at some other common System i purchasing issues, including the need for additional power in the computer room, operating system upgrade issues, and making sure that you have everything that’s needed for the new machine.

Five Pitfalls When Buying a New System i

While it’s hard to make a complete list of items to watch out for when buying a new System i machine, I’ve found that the following pitfalls can easily rear up