• Guru: Testing URLs With HTTP_GET_VERBOSE

  May 20, 2024 Gregory Simmons

  In my previous article Fooling around with SQL and RPG, I explored having a little fun with the HTTP_GET function to fetch a witty Dad Joke from https://icanhazdadjoke.com/. In this article, I want to demonstrate a more practical use of this great function. Or should I say, another version of HTTP_GET, that is HTTP_GET_VERBOSE, which also was introduced to us by the DB2 team in V7R3.

  In its simplest implementation, I can insert the URL I want to test into an SQL statement:

  select *
  from table(QSYS2.HTTP_GET_VERBOSE('https://icanhazdadjoke.com/',''))
  

  I will later want to run this embedded in an RPG …

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• Guru: The OpenAI API – The Easy Way

  May 13, 2024 Dan Darnell

  When it comes to programming in a particular programming language there is what you can do and what you can do easily. I use RPG every day and have done so since the System/34 days. I love the language but I’ve also picked up other programming languages over time because sometimes RPG isn’t the right tool for the job.

  I’ve been using IBM EGL – Enterprise Generation Language – to create IBM i applications since 2009. IBM made a push at one time to entice RPG programmers to pick up the language and toolset (Rational Business Developer) for modernization …

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• Guru: Web Concepts For The RPG Developer, Part 1

  April 22, 2024 Chris Ringer

  Way back in the 1990s, I recall accessing data with only RPG III F-Specs. But nowadays some of that critical data may live in the cloud. The good news is tools like HTTPAPI and RXS and SQL functions like SQL HTTP are available to access that remote data from the IBM i. But what you may not know is how to actually format components in those HTTP requests.

  Here I will discuss some techniques to build those components in an HTTP request before sending it across the web.

  HTTP Get Versus Post

  The two most common methods for an HTTP …

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• Guru: Fooling Around With SQL And RPG

  April 15, 2024 Gregory Simmons

  Editor’s Note: This was originally scheduled to be published on April 1. No joke. And for a lot of complex reasons, that could not happen. But, it’s still fun, so enjoy.

  I started out one morning, purely interested in having a bit of fun. Honest. In RSS within ACS, I often like to run this SQL:

   select *
   from json_table(
        QSYS2.HTTP_GET('https://icanhazdadjoke.com/',
                '{"header": "Accept,application/json", "sslTolerate":"true"}'),
                'lax $' columns ("joke" varchar(200) CCSID 1208)
        )
  

  

  Okay, that was fun. This is harmless, good fun. But then I thought, what if I put this into a simple RPG program? Then I …

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• Guru: Assertions, Take 2

  February 12, 2024 Ted Holt

  It’s been almost 20 years since Cletus the Codeslinger introduced assertions to the IBM midrange world, and in that time, I have included many assertions in my RPG programs. During that 20 years, RPG has changed a bit and Cletus has quit writing articles (but not source code), so I’ve taken it upon myself to update the code he gave us.

  First, however, it might be a good idea to briefly review the topic of assertions for readers who don’t know what they are. An assertion is a program statement or command that cancels a program if a fatal condition …

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• Guru: Getting Started With The Code 4 i Extension Within VS Code

  January 22, 2024 Gregory Simmons

  The Code for IBM i extension is growing in popularity and has certainly become my favorite source code editor. This article is not an attempt to convince you to drop RDi and switch to VS Code. Rather, I aim to share with you a few of my favorite settings and features in VS Code.

  Join In The Discussion

  Can’t figure out how to do something? Have a suggestion for a new enhancement? I am continually impressed with the speed at which I get responses when I post something. The team of coders and contributors to the Code for IBM i …

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• Guru: Using Mixed Lists To Add “Data Structures” To CL Commands

  January 15, 2024 Ted Holt

  I can’t remember the last time I worked on an RPG program that had no data structures, but it was probably on a System/34. Everybody uses data structures, and with good reason – they are as handy as a pocket. When writing CL commands, it is possible to include parameters that are formatted as data structures. IBM calls them mixed lists. In the following paragraphs, I show how this is accomplished.

  You may not realize it, but you have used IBM-supplied commands that have mixed-list parameters. For example, the Copy File (CPYF) command has several such parameters: FROMKEY, TOKEY, INCCHAR, …

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• Guru: Partitioning Result Sets Using SQL

  November 27, 2023 Mike Larsen

  While working on a project recently, I needed to retrieve attributes of an item. While that sounds like a simple task, there was a twist. While reviewing the contents of the item master table, I noticed there could be multiple rows for the same item and each row was active and valid from a business perspective.

  I won’t get into the business end of it, but my goal was to return the most recent iteration of the item for further processing in the program. After doing some research and trying some potential solutions, I came across the SQL partition by …

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• Guru: Procedure Driven RPG Means Keeping Your Variables Local

  November 6, 2023 Gregory Simmons

  One of the things I love most about procedure driven RPG is that it allows me to keep my variables locally defined. Imagine this horror story that happens all too often in RPG shops.

  Jake: “Hey Gregory, Accounting just called; seems the rebalancing report program is acting up. Didn’t I hear you were working on that the other day?”

  Me: “Ugh, yes. All I had to do was reset this field that was used to show or not show the totaling line between branches. I tested in my library and the fix worked fine.”

  Jake: “Yeah, I had to change …

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• Guru: The Transition From Modern RPG IV To Modern SQL

  October 30, 2023 Bob Cozzi

  Seven or eight years ago I was working with a client who needed more contemporary reporting than provided by the legacy Query/400 product. Initially I looked at Db2 Web Query and realized the documentation was sparse and the tutorials for most things, even “getting started” were virtually non-existent. It was also about four times more expensive than I felt it was worth to a P05 or P10 client. I mentioned the documentation issue to the folks at IBM and they agreed. Some of it was eventually resolved, but not enough in my opinion to get the masses to replace Query/400 …

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