The DBCS open data type is used in many legacy applications as a way to support storage of either single byte character set (SBCS) data, double byte character set (DBCS) data, or even data from both character sets within a single data column. Defined with a data type of O within DDS specs, this data type carries an inherent agnostic coded character set identifier (CCSID) of 65535.

The DBCS open data type operates by storing single byte characters, as traditional single byte character columns do. However, when a DBCS open column stores double byte characters, it uses special embedded escape

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

The famous ERP package with which I work at my day job stores dates in seven-digit packed decimal fields in CYYMMDD format. Reformatting these dates into something readable in an SQL query is challenging, to put it mildly. To complicate matters, our homegrown systems have dates in YYYYMMDD formats, and outfiles of CL commands have dates in MMDDYY format. I finally got tired of converting and substringing and concatenating, and decided to write a general SQL function to convert dates. I hastily threw it together, but it seems

Last week, I published code that allows authorized users to change user profile passwords with a simple call command. However, several readers emailed me about a mistake that will stop the code from compiling. This week, I’m publishing a correction to the code, as well as a new function for preventing the code from changing passwords for security officers, security administrators, and users with all object access.

Correction: Updated Password Program Change Code

The PSSWRDCHG code I published last issue allows selected users without security administrator authority the ability to change a user profile password or to disable a user