• A Simple Guide to jar

  October 23, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, Ted:

  I read with interest the Midrange Guru article, “FTP and Save Files, Yet Again“, and I have a question. Do you have a simple guide to using the Qshell jar utility, something simple enough for someone who knows nothing about Qshell?

  — Jeff

  Jar stands for Java Archive and is just another name for the zip format that has been around for years in the PC world. As far as I know, jar files and zip files are interchangeable. I’ve never had a problem using one when I supposedly needed the other.

  Jar is made for

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• Type2 IFS Directories

  October 23, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, Ted:

  I have heard that the Integrated File System (IFS) has a new structure in V5R2. Do you know anything about this?

  — Dan

  With V5R2, IBM introduced a new and improved directory structure for the IFS. The new model is called Type2 and the original directory structure, which until then had no name, was labeled Type1. Type2 is the new standard for IFS directories and directories shipped with future iSeries systems will be in the Type2 format. Type2 directories do not apply to the entire IFS, but to the root, QOpenSys, and user-defined files systems only.

  Type2 directories

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• Reader Feedback and Insights: Another Compression Utility

  October 18, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, Ted:

  There’s another free compression utility that can do the same good work on save files . It’s part of a free download from IBM .

  The utility is called gzip, and it’s a part of GNU Tools. The GNU utilities can be downloaded at IBM’s Application Factory – Porting: GNU utilities download page . It appears it might be bundled with WDS V5R1.

  Gzip runs in Qshell, but it is a link to a *PGM object. I’ve been able to make a copy of GNU/GZIP and call it. Just put each option-value pair inside apostrophes or single quote

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• Reading Spool Files in RPG

  October 18, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, Ted:

  I have a problem similar to the one you solved in the February 27, 2002, issue of Midrange Guru. I wish to copy a spooled file that has been produced by a package, run an RPG program to modify the output, and build a new spooled file. In that example, you specified CTLCHAR(*FCFC) in the Copy Spooled File (CPYSPLF) command in order to use first-character form control characters. Can an RPG program interpret those characters and generate a new spool file with the same spacing?

  — Joe

  If you only want to modify the lines and reprint

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• Hex Dump of an IFS File

  October 18, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, Ted:

  How can I get a hexadecimal dump of an IFS file?

  — Charles

  Use the od utility, which runs under Qshell. Use the t option to tell od which format(s) you want to see. Here’s a list of all the formats you can request.

  • a, c character
  • d signed decimal
  • f floating point
  • o octal
  • u unsigned decimal
  • x hexadecimal

  To display a file in hexadecimal, follow the t option with an x.

  I can illustrate with a simple text file, which I’ll call err.log. The CCSID attribute is 37, which means the data is stored in EBCDIC.

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• Reader Feedback and Insights: Dynamic Result Field in Query/400

  October 16, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, Ted:

  Some time ago I ran into a situation similar to the one described in Midrange Guru by Bruce and Bill: I also needed to generate a result field from a dynamic expression.

  I solved the problem by generating the whole Open Query File (OPNQRYF) command on the fly and then using QCMDEXC to run it.

  These days I use RPG IV to generate the command. It is much easier than using RPG III.

  — Eitan

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Sorting Lists in Java

  October 16, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, David:

  I have a servlet program that builds a list of products. I have several ways of sorting the list of products, and in most cases, I can just change the order by clause in my select statement to return the correct order. In one view, I need to sort the list by the length of a product component name. I built my own sort routine, but I wonder whether SQL or Java provides a way to sort a list of items by their length.

  — Michael

  You could use a universal disk format (UDF) to return a value

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• Extending the Network

  October 16, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, Ted:

  Our company recently acquired a small company with its own network, on which it uses Microsoft Terminal Server to host the client applications. Our AS/400 is at V4R3, and our Client Access is V3R2. Can we use the Terminal Server to extend the AS/400 green screens to the other network?

  — Greg

  Yes, that will work. I checked with several of my associates, and all of them strongly recommended you upgrade to newer versions of OS/400 and Client Access as soon as possible.

  — Ted

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Reader Feedback and Insights: Dynamic Result Field in Query/400

  October 11, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, Ted:

  In the article “Dynamic Result Field in Query/400“, which appeared in Midrange Guru, OS/400 Edition, Bill wrote, “Every month we run a query that reports year-to-date sales. The year-to-date sales field, YTD$, is defined as result field that adds up monthly numeric buckets from a sales detail file. For example, the YTD$ for March will contain the expression Jan+Feb+Mar. However, before we can run this query each month, we have to add the next month to the expression. We would like to avoid having to modify the expression every month. Is there a way to

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• Odds and Ends

  October 11, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Dear Readers:

  Here are yet more answers to miscellaneous questions. Maybe someone has asked me a question to a problem or situation that you were wondering about.

  — Ted

  Question:

  I am regular reader of your programming tips. I had a question, searched the Web for an answer, and couldn’t get the solution. May be I am not looking at the right place.

  Lately, we have been converting programs from RPG/400 to RPG IV. When an RPG IV program abends at runtime, we look at dumps to investigate further. When we look at the dump, the “Statement in Error ………

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