• Guru: Graphical Debugging Through ACS

  June 8, 2020 Ted Holt

  ACS (IBM i Access Client Solutions) keeps getting better and better. I can’t stay up-to-date with the latest releases of all the software I use, but I do everything I can to keep up-to-date with ACS. One of the handiest of the relatively most recent releases is the ability to access IBM i Debugger through Run SQL Scripts. If you haven’t tried IBM i Debugger, you’re missing out.

  IBM i Debugger (a.k.a. System Debugger) is part of the IBM Toolkit for Java. It’s graphical, and it makes the green-screen debugger (STRDBG) look like something built by cavemen. To show you …

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• ILEditor 2 Gives IBM i Shops A New Development Option

  May 6, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Liam Allan recently unveiled ILEditor 2, a new integrated development environment (IDE) for IBM i. The new IDE sports a fresher look and better performance compared to the first version of ILEditor, as well as an extensible plug-in system, which should also deliver better code coverage.

  For many years, members of the IBM i community have expressed frustration by the high price, size, and performance of Rational Developer for i (RDi), which is IBM’s flagship development tool for the IBM i community. While the IDE’s performance has improved in recent years, members of the community still bemoan the …

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• Guru: Copy From Stream File FMTOPT(*NOCHK)

  April 13, 2020 Bob Cozzi

  Using SQL frequently, as I do, I tend to look for solutions to problems that can be resolved using the database language (i.e., SQL). Sometimes I have to invent a missing piece of the puzzle. Often that entails writing a User-Defined Function (UDF) for use in SQL, but sometimes a CL command is the better choice.

  Recently I had a situation where what the client calls an “EDI File” was being downloaded using sftp on the IBM server running i. This file is created at a vendor that runs IBM mainframes (an actual mainframe by the way) and the file …

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• Guru: Calling RPG Programs From Python, Part 1

  March 30, 2020 Mike Larsen

  In a prior article, I showed how to pass parameters to a Python script and execute the script from an RPG program. Based on feedback and my own curiosity, I wanted to see how I could pass parameters to an RPG program and call it from Python. After a bit of research, I found the Python interface itoolkit.

  itoolkit is an open source project provided by IBM as an interface to the XMLSERVICE toolkit, which allows us to call RPG programs, service programs, CL programs, and PASE Shell commands. itoolkit can be installed using an SSH terminal with …

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• Boadway’s 25-Year Performance Shows No Let Up

  March 2, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Batch jobs running a little long? Throw some hardware at it. For as long as Mike Boadway can remember, that’s been the default response to dealing with most performance issues on the IBM i server. But when today’s fast Power9 processors and Flash drives fail to move the performance needle, maybe it’s worth reconsidering Boadway’s approach to tweaking the code and the data instead.

  As the CEO of MB Software & Consulting, Boadway makes his living off solving other people’s IBM i performance issues. Since founding the company in 1995, Boadway has used his proprietary software to deliver an …

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• Samba Patch Caps Busy Year for IBM i Security

  December 4, 2019 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week patched a moderately severe security flaw in IBM i’s Samba implementation that could enable hackers to access data they really shouldn’t be able to access. The disclosure caps a rather busy second half of the year for security patches on IBM i that saw 26 emergency PTFs and Yum updates for Node.js, Python, the Apache HTTP Server, OpenSSL, ISC Bind, IBM Navigator, and even Db2 Mirror for IBM i.

  On November 26, IBM issued this security bulletin to let people know about the new flaw in the Samba client. The flaw could allow a hacker to not …

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• Latest TRs For IBM i Now Available

  November 20, 2019 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week delivered the latest IBM i operating system Technology Refreshes, giving good IBM i boys and girls around the world early Christmas presents in areas like programing, operations, database, and security. Here’s a quick recap of the new stuff in IBM i 7.4 TR1 and 7.3 TR7.

  There were several general enhancements with IBM i 7.4 TR1 and 7.3 TR7. For starters, administrators gained more control over resources available to the Integrated Web Server (the one powered by Apache) with the new capability to install it the Web server in a user-specified sub-system. Admins also get new functions …

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• R Comes To i

  May 1, 2019 Alex Woodie

  IBM is now officially supporting the language R with its IBM i operating system, the company announced last week. The open source language, which has long been a favorite of data scientists, statisticians, and others involved with scientific computing, gives IBM i an immediate boost when it comes to data mining and machine learning.

  The R language was originally developed 25 years ago by a pair of computer science professors, Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman, at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The software, which was developed largely in C and Fortran, was based largely on S, a programming language …

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• What New Language Will IBM i Support Next?

  March 27, 2019 Alex Woodie

  The prospect of a new language coming to a platform is always reason for excitement. New languages bring new capabilities, or at least faster ways to tap into existing capabilities. The question for those living and working on the IBM i platform is what language will come next?

  RPG remains the go-to language used by the vast majority developers on the IBM i platforms. According to the 2019 survey by HelpSystems, 84 percent of coders on the box use RPG. COBOL, RPG’s partner in legacy crime, is also supported in the Rational Development for IBM i RDi, along with …

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• Midnight Commander Comes To IBM i

  March 20, 2019 Alex Woodie

  IBM i professionals who work extensively with files in the IFS will be happy to hear a new software utility has been ported to the IBM i PASE environment that could save them a bunch of time. The open source software, called Midnight Commander, gives developers and administrators a handy command line experience that can help speed up tasks, especially when giving commands to large number of files stored on remote machines.

  Midnight Commander was originally developed in 1994 as a file utility for UNIX, which was beginning to emerge from software labs to challenge minicomputer platforms of the day, …

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