• Guru: Passing Parameters To Python

  August 5, 2019 Mike Larsen

  Python scripts offer great benefits to developers, whether used standalone or in conjunction with RPG programs. As I’ve been exploring Python and recently I had a need to execute a Python script from an RPG program. In addition to executing the script, I also wanted to pass it parameters.

  One of the benefits of passing parameters is to give us the ability to soft-code programs or scripts. Soft-coding makes programs more flexible and re-usable, and helps to reduce maintenance.

  To illustrate how to do this, I’ve coded a very simple RPG program and an even simpler Python script. I’ll start …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, August 5

  August 5, 2019 Jenny Thomas

  The temperatures are still rising outside but summer is winding down, especially for those of us with school age kids who know their carefree days will soon be replaced with reading, writing, and arithmetic. In the IT world, this is the time of year when we start to get our second wind. The fall conference season is just around the corner, and solution providers are looking to do a last push, and we are ramping up to make sure we keep you in the loop for all of it. In the meantime, enjoy the last few weeks for summer and …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 30

  August 5, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  It is definitely summer in IBM i PTF Land. There are a few things to report this week, but not the deluge it has been in prior weeks. There are updates to the Backup and Recovery Group for IBM i 7.4, 7.3 and 7.2, and the SAP 7.1 Final update. There is also a new MGTOOLS for all of the current releases.

  As for tips, August 1 was National Water Balloon Day, and we did not know there was such a thing. But it is the first Friday every August. Go figure. We will be going through new and updated …

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• Power Systems Keeps Growing Against A Tough Compare

  July 22, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  This time last year, Big Blue was just starting to ship Power9-based systems for the “Summit” and “Sierra” supercomputers built for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and that gave the Power Systems line a revenue bump through the third and fourth quarters of last year. There is no such big deal this year, although IBM has sold a baby version of these machines – if you consider the 25 petaflops “Pangea III” supercomputer small – to European oil and gas giant Total.

  That deal with Total surely helped IBM make its …

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• Cloud ERP for Less than $400 Per Month? Now There’s a Concept

  July 22, 2019 Alex Woodie

  What do you call a full-fledged ERP system running on a private IBM i cloud that costs less than $400 per month for three users? If you’re Software Concepts – the Massachusetts-based ERP vendor behind the bold new deal – you might call it just what the IBM i ecosystem needed.

  The IBM midrange server has always been something of an enigma in the IT business. Tucked between the giant mainframes running Fortune 100 outfits and the PCs favored by one-man shops, the AS/400 and its progeny have catered to midsized organizations that demand advanced business functionality, but not the …

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• Guru: How Thorough Was Your Last Test? RDi Code Coverage Can Tell You

  July 22, 2019 Susan Gantner

  When you’ve made changes to one or more programs, you test all the changes – right? And, of course, you also test all the rest of the code just to make sure you didn’t break anything else. Did you do that with your last set of changes? Did you test ALL the code? Enabling you to answer that last question is what RDi’s Code Coverage facility is all about.

  This is an introduction to Code Coverage — the basics of both why and how to use it. Before I go into how to run it, it may pique your interest …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, July 22

  July 22, 2019 Jenny Thomas

  Sometimes it’s a good idea to toot your own horn. But before you dust off your passé paper resume to add to your latest accomplishments, you might want to take a look at the new rage: digital badges. You may have noticed these badges popping up on your Twitter feed if you follow and of our 2019 IBM i champions, but there are many more badges available for all sorts of IBM-related skills. In our Top Story below you can find a link to Acclaim, a site that works with vendors, including IBM, to verify talent through digital credentials representing …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 29

  July 22, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  We pay attention to bugs and fixes for the IBM i platform here at the IBM i PTF Guide, and we saw some information in Big Blue’s support databases about APARs – short for Authorized Program Analysis Reports – which is an official response from IBM when customers report a problem with a system or find a suspected defect. Not all APARs get PTFs or permanent fixes in subsequent releases, but many, of course, do.

  Here is the interesting set of statistics, which has the number of APARs by operating system release level:

  • 19,392 on V7R1
  • 11,383 on V7R2
  • 7,182

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• Guru Classic: My Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts for RSE/RDi

  July 17, 2019 Susan Gantner

  When using RDi for editing my CL, DDS, RPG, or COBOL code, I find that I can save a lot of time by using keyboard shortcuts for functions that would otherwise require that I take my hands off the keyboard to use the mouse. So I thought I would share a few of my favorites. Many of the shortcuts I use are standard for other applications that I also use for email, spreadsheets or text editing. It’s easy to forget that some of those same shortcuts can be used when we’re editing our RPG code.

  A lot has changed on …

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• Guru Classic: The New Basics — Indicators

  July 17, 2019 Jon Paris

  The history of indicators pre-dates even the earliest versions of RPG and takes us all the way back to the old tabulating machines, perhaps even earlier depending on how broad a definition one uses. What is without doubt, though, is that indicators in the sense of *INnn and *INLR were added to the RPG language as a vehicle for translating those old tabulator board programs.

  RPG has grown a lot since those early days, and yet many people still write code using the old-style numbered indicators. LR? Well, we’re kind of stuck with that, but there hasn’t been a need …

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