Reader Feedback and Insights: SQL to the Rescue!

October 25, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, Ted:

I am writing in regard to the September 20, 2002 Midrange Guru article, “Comparing Lists of Numbers to a Value .” I would like to offer the following embedded SQL example as an alternative solution:

D found           s              1a              
D
 * if (field1 or field2 or field3) > 25 
C/exec sql                                       
C+    select case                                
C+      when max(:field1, :field2, :field3) > 25 
C+         then '1'                              
C+         else '0'                              
C+      end                                      
C+    into :found                                
C+    from (any file with one record)
C/end-exec                                       
C                                                
C                   if        found = *on        
 .................. whatever ..................
C                   else 
................... whatever ..................
C                   endif

This

Another Way to Dump an IFS File

October 25, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, Ted:

When answering the question that was posed in the October 18 issue of Midrange Guru, “Hex Dump of an IFS File,” you provided a Qshell answer. If you don’t happen to have Qshell installed, you can use two CL commands instead. Here’s how:

CPY OBJ('/somedir/somefile.txt') +
   TOOBJ('/qsys.lib/somelib.lib/hexifs.usrspc') +
   TOCODEPAGE(*CALC) DTAFMT(*TEXT)

DMPOBJ DMPOBJ OBJ(somelib/hexifs) +
   OBJTYPE(*USRSPC)

Experiment with the codepage and data format parameters of the Copy (CPY) command to give needed conversions.

There are a couple of other details of which you should be aware:

• CPY fails if the user space already exists.
• Using CPY

Johnny Can’t Read and RPG Can’t Do Math

October 25, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, Ted:

I ran into an anomaly and was wondering if you could shed some light on it.

A subprocedure that I wrote doesn’t return the correct value. The problem is caused by an expression that doesn’t return the value that I think it should.

Why does the expression, which returns the correct value (.3) in the Test4 evaluation, apparently return an incorrect value (.29999) when combined in another expression?

H EXPROPTS(*MAXDIGITS)
D X               S              5  0 Inz(1)
D Y               S              5  0 Inz(6)
D  ABC            S             15A   Inz('13077.39')
D  NUM            S             15  5 Inz(0000013077.00000)
D  Digits         S             10    Inz('0123456789')