• Guru: ACS 1.1.8.3 Content Assist Includes Prompt For SQL!

  February 10, 2020 Birgitta Hauser

  STRSQL, the green-screen facility for executing SQL Statements, has had its days. Nevertheless, many SQL users still prefer this legacy interface over the Access Client Solutions (ACS) Run SQL Scripts facility. Others use third-party tools to execute SQL statements. The common excuse has been that the Run SQL Script facility does not include a way to prompt SQL commands, tables, and columns. In ACS version 1.1.8.3, Content Assist includes prompting for SQL statements.

  Before ACS Version 1.1.8.3, no prompting was available within the Run SQL Scripts Facility. To access tables, views or materialized query tables (MQTs), we needed to know …

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• Guru: Copy OUTQ To PDF

  February 3, 2020 Bob Cozzi

  A long time ago I created a CL command named Copy from OUTQ (CPYOUTQ). This command allowed you to selectively copy spooled files from one OUTQ to either another OUTQ or to the IFS as a PDF or text file. My customers use it all the time for monthly archiving of spooled files and redistribution of output. You may have it on your own system.

  Being one of the handful of original advocates for the so called “Openness APIs” for IBM OS/400 (now IBM i), I quickly embraced the system APIs and have used them extensively throughout the decades. One …

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• Guru: SQL Functions Can Do Non-function Things

  January 27, 2020 Ted Holt

  We all know that the SQL SELECT statement only retrieves data, right? If you want to modify data, you have to use INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or MERGE, correct? Well, to quote the great George Gershwin, It Ain’t Necessarily So. You can modify data from a SELECT statement, and maybe sometimes you should. Here’s how it’s done.

  I’ll illustrate with a SELECT statement that will run the Reorganize Physical File (RGZPFM) command over physical files that have at least 10 percent deleted records. I could do this with plain ol’ CL, of course, and that’s probably the approach I would …

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• Guru: RDi V9.6, Part 6 – The New Object Table Gets Even Better

  January 20, 2020 Susan Gantner

  RDi V9.6 seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. I started this series about this release of RDi almost two years ago. You may have thought my last (fifth) tip in the series was the last on this subject, but it turns out there’s still more!

  I wrote an entire tip earlier on the new and greatly improved Object Table view. In a related tip, when discussing the PDM perspective, I said that I thought there were a few enhancements still needed to make the perspective a good tool for easing the transition from PDM for RDi …

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• Guru: Formatting Numbers and Dates/Times/Timestamps in SQL

  January 13, 2020 Paul Tuohy

  In this article, I want to share with you an SQL scalar function that I happen to have been using quite a bit recently. At times, when using an SQL select statement, you may want to format a number or date. Something along the same lines as using the %EDITC or %EDITW built in functions in RPG or the EDTCDE or EDTWRD keywords in DDS. In SQL we can use the VARCHAR_FORMAT or TO_CHAR (they are synonyms for each other – both work exactly the same way) scalar function to provide similar functionality.

  Since they are synonyms for each other, …

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• Guru 2020: Suggested Resolutions, One Prediction

  January 6, 2020 Ted Holt

  Do you eat candy made of underwear? How are your telepathy and teleportation skills? How long ago did you give up eating? How many choppers are on the family helipad? Is your chauffeur a gorilla? Read about these and other bizarre predictions for 2020 here.

  A new year is invariably accompanied by resolutions and predictions. I don’t intend to make any of either. However, if you’re into making resolutions, I’ve got some suggestions that you can take or leave, as you wish. As for predictions, I’ve got one that can’t miss.

  For RPG programmers who are still looking for …

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• Guru: More End Of Year Feedback

  December 9, 2019 Ted Holt

  You are busy. The people you serve need you to do more than one human being can do. You don’t have time to look for comments or updates to the articles we run in this august publication or any other. For this reason, I was pleased to publish some of your feedback in last week’s issue. This week I am pleased to share a bit more.

  In response to Guru: MERGE, Chicken, and Eggs, John asked a good question and made a good point:

  How is using this merge technique under commitment control any different than just doing the …

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• Guru: End Of Year Feedback

  December 2, 2019 Ted Holt

  The year has flown by. Before we know it, it will be 2020. The century is flying by, too. We’ve almost consumed a fifth of it. That seems like a good excuse to see what we might glean from some of your feedback. It’s been a while. More to come next week!

  Several readers wrote regarding the need to remove hard-coded values from programs. Jim brought up the problem of compile-time tables and arrays.

  I find cases where data is hard coded (state names, product categories are a few examples) for tables or arrays in dozens of programs.

  I wish …

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• Guru: Code Coverage via CL Command

  November 25, 2019 Susan Gantner

  This is my third tip on using RDi’s Code Coverage support. In the first tip, we explored setting up a test run using Service Entry Points (a.k.a. SEPs). In the second one, I covered how to create a configuration for the test run. Here we’ll see how to use a CL command to run a Code Coverage test session without requiring interaction with RDi (except for reporting.)

  Before seeing how to do it, it may be good to discuss why you may prefer to use this approach. Simply put, it makes it easier to automate the testing process …

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• Guru: Better Check Constraints

  November 11, 2019 Ted Holt

  This article has three purposes. If you use check constraints in your database, the purpose is to help you make better use of check constraints. If you don’t use check constraints, the purpose is to encourage you to use them and to point you in the right direction. If you already know all this stuff, the purpose is to goad you to email me and teach me something I don’t know.

  The purpose of check constraints is to keep invalid data out of the database. That may seem unnecessary. Isn’t that what the applications are supposed to do? Yes, but …

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