• Use SQL To Read IFS Directories

  August 27, 2014 Ted Holt

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. The Integrated File System (IFS) is marvelous, and without it this system I love so well would be history. Nevertheless, managing the files in the IFS is challenging. Recently I found myself wishing that I could use SQL to query an IFS directory. Since IBM had not provided me with that interface, I decided to build it myself. Here you are. I didn’t start from scratch. Thanks to Bob Cozzi and Scott Klement, whose code I’ve appropriated over the years, I’ve written programs that access the IFS. Throwing

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• Automatically Detecting And Re-Enabling Disabled NetServer Profiles

  August 27, 2014 Hey, Joe

  I have a few people that no matter what I do, always manage to disable their i5/OS NetServer (NetServer) user profile when they are opening an IBM i file share. Is there anything I can do to automatically re-enable their profiles when this happens? –Matt The first thing I’d do is check to see if there’s a reason your users are automatically disabling their NetServer profile when they try to open an IBM i file share as a Windows network drive. The most common situation I’ve found for auto-disabling NetServer profiles is when a user’s Windows network password doesn’t match

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• The Geezer’s Guide to Free-Form RPG, Part 5: File Definitions

  August 13, 2014 Jon Paris

  While the changes in data definition introduced by the new free-form RPG support are great, I have to admit that it was probably the free-form file specifications that raised the biggest cheer from me. Let me tell you why. I have always hated F-specs. Those nasty little single column codes drove me crazy. I could never remember what went where. I know I’m not the only one. All of the programmers we have taught RPG to over the last few years have also had similar problems coming to grips with with F-specs. I am reminded of this almost every time

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• Do It Now!

  August 13, 2014 Hey, Ted

  In our RPG programs we protect input operations (CHAIN, READ, etc.) with an error-handling routine that notifies users of record locks. That is, the RecLock subroutine sends a break message to the locking user and displays a window with lock information to the requesting user. This logic is not working in one of our programs, and we can’t determine why. Can you help? –Kent I’m glad Kent wrote with this problem. It gives me an opportunity to write about a topic that has been on my mind for some time. But first, here’s a trivia question for you to think

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• Admin Alert: More On Porting User Profiles Between IBM i Partitions

  August 13, 2014 Joe Hertvik

  After receiving reader email about my recent tip on how to port IBM i user profiles from one partition to another, I found there were two items that deserved more explanation and correction: 1) Restoring user profiles for multiple users; and 2) related parameters and objects that a restored profile needs. Here are some corrections and additional information that fill in the gaps that were missing from my previous article. Correcting How To Use RSTAUT For Multiple Restored User Profiles Reader David Miller asked me to clarify what I meant when I said the following about restoring private authorities for

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• Decisions, Decisions: Templates Or Snippets?

  July 30, 2014 Susan Gantner

  All you RSE (a.k.a., RDi, RDP, WDSC) users out there: Do you prefer templates or snippets? For some of you, the response may be “What’s a Template?” Or “What’s a Snippet?” For those readers, I’ll direct you to first learn more about the basics of both topics via earlier tips from Paul Tuohy, when he wrote about creating templates and creating snippets. If your answer to my original question about templates vs. snippets is “Yes” (meaning you like both), perhaps you don’t need to read the rest of this tip. As with several capabilities of the Rational toolset, these

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• How Do I De-Edit? Let Me Count The Ways

  July 30, 2014 Ted Holt

  I’m sure that you, the professional that you are, are expert in the process of editing numbers. Unlike me, you may even have memorized the edit codes we often use in RPG and DDS source code. Editing is important because it makes life easier for the folks who use the software we produce. But do you know how to de-edit? These days data comes from many sources, and the people who send us this data (or from whom we glean it) don’t always give it to us in tidy packages. Converting such data to a usable format can be challenging,

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• When IBM i RGZPFM Doesn’t Want To Rebuild Access Paths

  July 30, 2014 Hey, Joe

  I’m trying to run this Reorganize Physical File (RGZPFM) command to reorganize one of my files while it’s active: RGZPFM FILE(lib_name/file_name) MBR(member_name) RBDACCPTH(*OPTIMIZE) ALWCANCEL(*YES) LOCK(*SHRUPD) But I keep getting this CPF3135 error: CPF3135 - Access path for member &2 already in use. This is not what I anticipated. Am I doing something wrong? –Alan My guess is that your RGZPFM command will complete correctly if you run the command using these parameters: RGZPFM FILE(lib_name/file_name) MBR(member_name) RBDACCPTH(*NO) ALWCANCEL(*YES) LOCK(*SHRUPD) The difference between this command and your command is that the Rebuild Access Paths

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• DB2 for i 7.2 Features And Fun: Part 2

  July 23, 2014 Michael Sansoterra

  In the first tip of this series, I covered three new features introduced in DB2 for i 7.2: ALTER TRIGGER, TRUNCATE TABLE, and the ability to vary the fractional precision of a TIMESTAMP column. This tip continues the adventure by exploring a few more new features in IBM i 7.2 (in no particular order). KEEP IN MEMORY Clause For Tables And Index When creating a new index or table, a new KEEP IN MEMORY clause is available to tell DB2 to keep the data in main storage when possible. (A table or index cached in this manner should, of

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• Beefing Up The Job Log

  July 23, 2014 Ted Holt

  Next to Barbara Morris, the job log is the IBM i professional’s best friend. However, even though job logs give useful information, they don’t always tell us everything we need to know to diagnose job failure. A recent email from perspicacious reader Daniel Long reminded me that sometimes we have to help ourselves. A job log can tell us when a job started and ended, the list of libraries at its disposal, the CL commands and programs it ran, the messages those programs sent, etc. The one thing the job log does not show us, and how I

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