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  • Guru: Unlocking The Power Of %CONCAT And %CONCATARR In RPG

    April 14, 2025 Gregory Simmons

    When working with strings in RPG, especially in modern free-format code, the %CONCAT and %CONCATARR built-in functions (BIFs) offer efficient and readable solutions for combining strings. These functions simplify the process of concatenating multiple string values, making your code cleaner and easier to maintain. In this article, we will explore how they work and demonstrate their practical applications.

    The %CONCAT BIF allows you to combine multiple strings. It’s a more efficient and readable alternative to traditional concatenation using the + operator.

    Here’s a simple example:

    **Free
    Ctl-Opt Main(CONCAT_1) ActGrp(*Caller);
    
    Dcl-Pr pause ExtProc('sleep');
      time_to_sleep Uns(10) Value;
    End-Pr;
    
    Dcl-Proc CONCAT_1;
    
      Dcl-S firstName 
    …

    Read more
  • Is IBM i Ready for the Agentic AI Revolution?

    March 24, 2025 Alex Woodie

    The AI world moves fast. Just when you get your head around large language models (LLMs) and the chatbots and coding co-pilots they enable, the AI world has moved onto something new. In 2025, that something new is the reasoning model, which is enabling autonomous AI agents and the world of agentic AI.

    Is IBM i ready for the revolution that’s about to unfold?

    By now you have undoubtedly read about LLMs such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Meta’s Llama. These LLMs are popular ways to power text-based generative AI applications, such as chatbots, coding co-pilots, and question-and-answer …

    Read more
  • Government Mainframes Versus DOGE: Showdown At The COBOL Corral

    March 17, 2025 Alex Woodie

    Elon Musk is a force of nature, slashing the federal payroll through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But the government’s IBM mainframes are immovable objects in their own rights, lasting the test of time. If Musk and DOGE are serious about reforming how the government does business, the government’s legacy systems will pose a serious challenge.

    As the head of DOGE, Musk has ruffled plenty of feathers with his comments and his actions, including firing federal employees en masse and wielding a large “chainsaw for bureaucracy” given to him by Argentine President Javier Milei, an ally of President Donald …

    Read more
  • Guru: Creating An RPG Stored Procedure That Returns A Result Set

    March 17, 2025 Mike Larsen

    In the previous article, I showed how to create an RPG stored procedure that uses parameters. In this article, I’m going to show how to create an RPG stored procedure that returns a result set, as we would likely encounter this scenario more frequently. The data used in this example comes from the Department table from IBM’s Sample database.

    I created an RPG program (Figure 1) that selects all rows from the Departments table. I didn’t add any selection criteria as I know there aren’t many rows in the table, but you may want to limit the number of rows …

    Read more
  • Guru: AI Pair Programming In RPG With Continue

    March 10, 2025 Gregory Simmons

    In my last article, I shared a brief introduction to the GitHub Copilot extensions. These extensions provide an easy way to get up and running with an AI coding assistant to aid you in your RPG development. Being cloud based, it’s lightweight in terms of system resources, but it does cost a little money per month, per user.

    For this article, I would like to share with you what I have learned about a newer extension for VS Code named Continue. Continue runs locally on your PC, is 100 percent free, and as of this writing, is the leading …

    Read more
  • Rocket CDC Tool Pushes Data Out Of IBM i

    March 10, 2025 Alex Woodie

    IBM i shops that need a change data capture (CDC) tool to push Db2 data off the box onto a target system, such as an Apache Kafka stream, may want to check out the new DataEdge product that Rocket Software recently announced.

    In late January, Rocket Software unveiled DataEdge, a new suite that provides a spectrum of data integration, data discovery, and data virtualization capabilities under the specific product names Rocket Data Replicate & Sync, Rocket Data Intelligence, and Rocket Data Virtualization. Some of the components in DataEdge are preexisting, while others – such as the outbound IBM i CDC …

    Read more
  • Steve Will Lifts the Curtain On “Major IBM i Announcement,” But Just A Smidge

    March 3, 2025 Alex Woodie

    If you haven’t heard yet, here it is: IBM is planning to make a major IBM i announcement soon. IBM i chief architect Steve Will said as much during his recent IBM i Guided Tour. While Will shared a general outline of what IBM has in mind for the major announcement, specifics still are few and far between.

    Will, who also holds the titles of IBM i CTO and IBM distinguished engineer, teased the IBM i community with his one-hour February 12 presentation, which is titled IBM i in 2025 – A Strategic Preview. You can access a recording …

    Read more
  • MDNA Speeds Up Git Transactions In Big IBM i Environments

    February 24, 2025 Alex Woodie

    With the latest release of its change management software for IBM i, Midrange Dynamics North America (MDNA) has addressed a thorny issue impacting the use of Git in large IBM i environments. The company also enhanced how it handles custom IBM i definitions in Git environments.

    The use of Git to manage source code has nearly doubled in the IBM i community over the past five years, according to Fortra’s IBM i Marketplace Study, growing to 30 percent in the most recent survey. That indicates a strong push to adopt DevOps technologies and techniques, which is a good thing …

    Read more
  • Guru: AI Pair Programming In RPG With GitHub Copilot

    February 17, 2025 Gregory Simmons

    If you have been meaning to give VS Code a try, but just haven’t had a chance, I encourage you to avail yourself today. Yes, for you RDi users, it will take a little bit to migrate your favorite settings, code snippets, and compile commands – but I promise, you won’t regret the move.

    In my article, Getting Started With The Code 4 i Extension Within VS Code, I offer a few more insights to help get you started. And if you are an SEU user, yes, the switch may seem daunting, but one of the great things about …

    Read more
  • ARCAD Discover: Global Application Analysis With An AI Interface

    February 10, 2025 Michel Mouchon

    Here is a simple test to reckon the value of the applications that run your company. Walk down to the datacenter, or over to the datacloset, or SSH out to the cloud, and turn the physical or logical machine running those applications off. What happens next?

    Aside from a lot of animated conversations and possibly some cursing, not much until you turn the machine back on and the system, databases, and applications reboot. You already knew this, but now everyone else has discovered, rather suddenly, how the very existence of the business and the livelihoods of the employees is dependent …

    Read more

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