In my last tips about the new OLAP features in DB2 for i 7.3, I discussed the OLAP Aggregation Specification and the new LAG and LEAD OLAP functions. In this article and the next one, I continue the discussion of new OLAP features by highlighting four new OLAP aggregate functions: FIRST_VALUE, LAST_VALUE, nTH_VALUE, and RATIO_TO_REPORT. The value of these functions is that they can reference data from other rows in a query result set relative to the current row.

The new OLAP aggregate functions differ from normal aggregate functions (such as MIN, MAX, SUM, and AVG) in that they can

I love it when someone improves something I’ve produced. In this case, that someone was Barry Arnold, an A-1COBOL programmer with whom I had the privilege to work once upon a time. Barry improved my FMTDATE SQL function for use in his shop. Maybe his enhancement will help you, too.

Barry’s shop, like many others, must deal with data from many different sources, and that data is often formatted in ways that are not conducive to RPG and COBOL programming. Barry found himself having to de-edit character dates before

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

Recently I was asked if I knew of a way to edit character strings. For example, take a character string representing a product code such as “AX12345Q” and edit it to produce “AX-123-45 Q”. My initial reaction was to reach for an edit word, but sadly they only work for numerics, for some strange reason. I set about building a subprocedure that offered the necessary flexibility in insert characters and also added a few “defenses” against mismatched parameters.

Before describing the code, let’s look at the prototype for