One issue that System i professionals are constantly raising when I’m preaching the gospel of DB2 for i SQL is that it’s difficult, or in some cases, not possible, to capture and store the SQL source statements or DDL (Data Definition Language) that were used to create DB2 database objects on a System i.

This is actually quite easy to do in Navigator using either of two almost identical functions. One is Generate SQL found in Database, and the other will be the focus of this article: Insert Generated SQL found in Run SQL Scripts. For reference, I am running

I immediately loaded and tested your FMTDATE function when I saw it in Four Hundred Guru. I just wanted to say “Thank You!” The tool is fantastic! We have mostly ISO and LONGJUL dates in our files and it is always a pain when converting or throwing math at them. No more!

Here is an example of some date math I tried on a LONGJUL order date and an ISO invoice date to calculate “Days-To-Ship” using your function:

SELECT fmtdate(OrderDate, 'LONGJUL', 'ISO-') Ordered,
       fmtdate(InvDate, 'ISO', 'ISO-') Invoiced,
       Date(fmtdate(InvDate, 'ISO', 'ISO-'))-
       Date(fmtdate(OrderDate, 'LONGJUL', 'ISO-'))
  FROM ORDERS

–Ken

I got a

I recently showed a reader how to create a high-priority batch subsystem on his i5/OS partition. I configured my prototype subsystem to run critical batch jobs at a higher priority than normal batch jobs, so that urgent work received preferential processing when allocating CPU cycles, performing I/O, etc. This week, I’ll demonstrate this technique for any readers who want to create this type of subsystem in their own shop.

The Need

Louis (not his real name) wrote in with an urgent need to run specific batch jobs at a higher priority than other batch work and possibly even higher than