AS400SoftwareDownloads

AS400 MS-Office Integration Report

Sat, 19 May 2012 10:10:29 +0000

An interesting and useful PDF Report written by Frank Thomas who is a System Architect at the Berbee Information Network Company.

It discusses different Data Transfer Methods between the AS/400 and PC systems such as:

CA data transfer
ODBC
FTP from the AS/400 or from the PC
OLE DB ADO
iSeries Access

The eBook will provide detailed explanations on each of the above methods with different file types such as MS Excel.

You can download the PDF ebook from:

==> AS/400 MS-Office Integration

PHP on IBM i (AS/400)

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:22:29 +0000

PHP on IBM i

I found an interesting article on Mike Pavlak’s blog and I have copied it below for your information and convenience.

How does PHP perform on IBM i?

Image via Wikipedia

Many folks who explore PHP on IBM i are very excited about a solution that works quickly, easily and efficiently. When you grow up from hello world to data inquiry to full blown CRUD you begin to pull a bit harder on the resources that the IBM i has to offer. And it happily accommodates you.

Myths
So there are many “myths” about the IBM i. Some will insist that Linux servers are “faster” than the IBM i. In part that may be true and false but for a variety of reasons. However, most of my customers do not have an IBM i because it is the “fastest” computer in the house even though these new Power 7 servers are pretty zippy. Most of my customers have IBM i because of the fact that they lived through the reality of TCO and they have legacy system investments that span decades that they simply do not wish to walk away from. Others will have you believe that the IBM i is not modern. To that I say you have not been to an IBM i event, lately. There are more advanced features in an IBM i today than ever before. With Virtualized everything, PHP, Java, MySQL and all the power of RPG Open Access the IBM i competes quite effectively. But I will spend a few minutes here speaking about the primary value prop of the IBM i: Consolidation.

All the eggs
Consolidation is all about many different workloads happily coexisting on a single platform. It reminds me of growing up on the Southwest side of Chicago in a 2 bedroom bungalow where my parents and three siblings “peaceably” coexisted for many years. Sure there was some tension when we were all packed into a small space. But it also brought about an intimacy that today seems impossible to duplicate no matter how often we “get together”. As we have scattered to the 4 winds we still maintain a closeness, but not nearly as strong as the days we were all together. So one would argue that at times having 6 people in line for the bathroom could slow us down. But at other times, when we wanted to install a new pool, many hands made for light work and would or could do things in a day that could never be accomplished by a single person. I see significant similarities between this life growing up and the data center that blasts apart applications by platform.

PHP
Getting back to PHP, when you have all these applications happily humming along on your IBM i there are bound to be conflicts, just like between me and my brother and sisters and so on. So what should we look for? The first thing to do is “don’t just throw hardware at the problem”. Even if you completely believe that hardware is your issue, you should still capture some metrics. There are several tool vendors that can gather these metrics as well as IBM. One partner I worked with had a relationship where they were able to “rent” the tools to create reports. These reports proved we need the hardware, but also confirmed exactly what hardware was needed, where and when we were i/o or memory bound, etc. So let’s pretend that you have resolved the hardware issues, where do you go next?

Working through the “work management” features of IBM can sometimes seem like a dark art. So do the right thing and get a little help. Maybe you go to COMMON and follow the iDevCloud guys, Larry Bolhuis and Jim Oberholtzer like groupies! Another good call is to call your business partner and they offer some services. It’s OK to Google the issue and lurk around Midrange.com for solutions too. But the worst thing you can do is throw hardware at the problem and assume it is fixed or suffer in silence.

PHP workload can be very diverse. One of the things I always tell my users in a demo is that DB2 performance improvements made in PHP applications help not only the PHP script response time, but it also reduces the load on DB2! And, just like the rising tide that raises all boats, every reduction in resources made by building better indexes in DB2 leaves more CPW for the rest of the server. CPW that drives RPG, PHP, Domino and all other kinds of workload. I have a customer who was planning a hardware upgrade. We recommended that they turn on some key features in Zend Server and then upgrade from V5R4 to i7.1. Once they did, new tools became available to indicate where there were performance bottlenecks in their server. No, the upgrade was for the right reasons Disk and RAM rather than “let’s just go to the latest hardware…” Please do not misunderstand me, if you need new hardware, processors, etc. then the investment should be made. But it should be made intelligently. Newer prices on Power7 hardware and maintenance can, in many cases, make the case for upgrading. Get your IBM BP involved and if you do not have an IBM BP or it is time for a change reach out to someone you trust. We have had good luck with the iDevCloud folks and you can too.

This was just a nugget of what we will talk about in the next IBM i webinar at Zend.com. Tune if for more so you too can benefit from the performance possibilities of Zend Server and IBM i.

Posted by Mike Pavlak at 10:05 AM

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AS400 Error Processing Utility

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:12:43 +0000

Some Error Processing routine must be included in any application program and it is useful to use the same approach in all programs.

This Utility provides a standard solution which can be used as a standard framework in the applications.

The Utility tries to achieve following objectives:

Obtain as much information as possible about the error condition. For this purpose it has been decided to always dump the failing program.
Provide the user with some information and directions about the actions needed to continue and avoid them to receive puzzling system messages.
Trap all messages so that they appear on the job log.

The Utility includes:

The GRCFAIL CL program which displays an information screen for interactive programs and processes the errors of both interactive and batch programs
The Display file for the previous program
the MSGCLR CL program used to clear a message queue
the MSGSND CL program used to send messages to a message queue

You can download the AS/400 Error Processing Utility from:

==> AS/400 User Space FFD Download

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An AS400 Application Cross Reference Utility

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:07:38 +0000

This utility has the purpose to collect and produce Cross Reference information about an application on an IBM iSeries (AS/400) system.

Often applications have a large number of files and programs and it can be quite time consuming to answer question such as:

What are the attributes of a file ? (e.g. description, type, access path)
Where is a file used ?
What are the relationships between files ?
Which fields exist in a file ?
What are the keys of a file?
Which programs are called from a given program ?
Which files are used from a program ?

These and many more similar questions can be answered by using AS/400 commands such as DSPFD, DSPFFD, DSPPGMREF etc or by searching in the program sources., but it is surely a time consuming activity that can be often avoided by inquiring a cross reference database.

This utility provides the programs to easily create the application cross reference database and to answer questions such as those detailed above.

The utility consists of two main parts as follows:

Management of the cross reference environments. This is achieved by calling the program XENVM1 which allows to create cross reference environments for new applications, to inquiry their definition and to delete them.
Inquiries on a selected environment. This is achieved by calling the program XREF01 that allows to select the type of inquiry and calls the appropriate programs to answer it.

The programs have been written in Cobol with embedded SQL.

You can download the AS/400 Application Cross Reference Utility from:

==> AS/400 Cross Reference Utility Download

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Goto400 – AS400 Freeware, Software and Other Services

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 10:11:15 +0000

An interesting AS400 site is Goto400.com which provides Freeware, Software and other Services for the IBM System i (AS/400) Systems.

I copy below some useful information from their site.

Website Info

Goto400.com provides free software and resource information on IBM System i ( formerly AS/400 or iSeries ) development and administration.

If you are interested in supporting my work and would like to contribute, you are welcome to make a small donation through the donate link on my website – it will be a great help and will surely be appreciated.

CL Command Browser

The CL Command Browser software is an essential software tool for IBM System i (iSeries, AS/400) users and developers.

The software runs as an eBook program. You may find the detail information of 2000+ System i (AS/400) Control Language commands.

The detail information includes the command names, run environments, command descriptions and command examples.

Read more Download

CL Program Editor

CL Program Editor is a text editor for Control Language (CL) Programming on IBM i5/OS and OS/400.

This editor is special designed for IBM i5/OS and OS/400 CL ( Control Language ) Programming. By the full syntax coloring editor, you may find the CL program source file is much cleaner to edit and view than before.

The CL Program Editor will make your programming much easier and avoid the typing or spelling mistakes.

Read more Download

CL Command Clipper

Are you tired of typing commands on the iSeries Operation Console or other 5250 terminal emulator? Have you thought about writing the OS/400 CL command easily and simply copy and paste your frequently used commands rather than typing them again and again?

You may have done this by text files and some text editors. Have a try with the CL Command Clipper, you may find it is the simplest but also very useful tool for your iSeries server administration and operations.

Read more Download

CL Abbreviation Reference

CL Abbreviation Reference program contains alphabetic lists of abbreviations that are used in CL commands that are part of IBM OS/400 and other IBM iSeries licensed programs.

These information can assist you in naming commands and keywords in a consistent manner when using command definition.

Read more Download

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The AS400 User Space FFD Utility

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 22:13:36 +0000

AS400 Developers often have the need to find the filed file description of a file and use it in different application programs.

The traditional way to do that was to direct to an output file the command DSPFFD (Display Field File Description) and then process the results of the command.

However there is better, faster and more efficient way to do it, by using the User Space APIs.

This Utility creates a temporary User Space and calls the User Space API’s to create the FFD of the file in the user space and to navigate the results.

The Utility consists of two main programs called UUFFDR (to create the file field definitions in the user space) and UURDFDR to read the definitions in the User Space.

There are also some secondary programs and data structures which are described in the documentation Ebook.

You can download the AS/400 User Space FFD Utility from:

==> AS/400 User Space FFD Download

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The AS400 Spool File Save/Restore Utility

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:16:26 +0000

The normal AS/400 back-ups do not save the spool files. However sometimes users prefer to keep important reports for long times and they would not be happy if they were lost because of some system failure.

It would be nice to move these report to some output queue and to regularly save its content. The saved spool files could also be removed from the system, thus increasing the disk space availability.

The utilities described below allow to save and restore the spool files of the selected output queue and therefore increase the security level of the back-ups. They consists of many programs, but only two can be invoked directly by the users as follows:

Program USPSAV1. The program can be called to control the spool file save function.
Program USPRST1. The program can be called to control the restore function.

You can download the AS/400 Spool File Save/Restore Utility from:

==> AS/400 Spool File Save/Restore Utility

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The AS400 Spool Files Export Utility

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:08:14 +0000

Spool files on the AS/400 cannot be transferred directly because they have a special format. Normally people use the CPYSPLF command to copy the spool file to a physical file and then they transfer the physical file.

However there is sometimes the need to import a spool file into spreadsheet applications such as Excel and the simple operations described above are not sufficient because each line is considered as a single cell of the spreadsheet.

The utility UEXPSPLF allows to split lines into separate cells and create a physical file that can be imported into the spreadsheet.

The command prompt the data in the following mask:

The user is required to specify the separator that will be used to identify the end of each column , the spool file and physical file where it should be copied.

When the data are entered, the program copies automatically the spool file to a physical file and then diplays the first page as follows:

The user can then identify the different columns, by entering the separator character at the end of each column, and then press F6 to request the production of the separated output file. This can then be easily transferred to the target machine and used to import the data into a spreadsheet.

You can download the AS/400 Spool File Export Utility from:

==> AS/400 Spool File Export Utility

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AS/400 and Linux/Unix/PC Transfer Utilities

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:47:53 +0000

1. Introduction

The following report presents some AS/400 File Transfer utilities that allow an easies integration with Linux or Unix or PCs applications.

Data transfers between separate machines can easily be performed with FTP, but , when AS/400 and Linux/Unix/PC machines are involved, some data format conversion is often required as described below:

The AS/400 uses the EBCDIC character set, whereas Linux, Unix and PC machines use ASCII. The conversion is normally done automatically by FTP.
Numbers are often stored on the AS400 in Packed Decimal format (2 digits per byte) that is not directly supported by Linux, Unix and PC. Packed decimal fields must therefore be unpacked when copying data for Linux.
In the AS/400 files the decimal point is implied according to the field definition. For instance if a field is 11 digits long with 2 decimals, no decimal point exists in the epresentation of the numbers, but the system automatically treats the last 2 digits as decimals. When numeric fields with decimals must be transferred to Linux, an explicit decimal point must be added in the correct position.

It is normally difficult to use direct transfers, because of packed fields and fixed length field requirements on the AS/400 files described above.

We have therefore developed some utilities that allow to make easier transfers from AS/400 database files to stream files and from stream files to the AS/400 database files.

2. Database File to Stream File Copy

The utility consists of a command (UCRTFTPFIL) and some programs that perform all needed data conversions. The AS/400 packed fields are converted into numeric fields and
an explicit decimal point is added when there are decimals. Moreover a field separator is added to identify the end of each field.

The command prompts the command parameters in the following mask:

It should be noticed that the user can select the separator (e.g. the pipe character) and the decimal point to use (dot or comma).

3. Stream File to Database File Copy

The utility assumes that the stream file contains fields separated by a separator. It is not requested to have the fields in the same sequence as those on the AS/400 database file.

The mapping of the fields can be entered by using the utility program UFMAP01L, that displays the following screen:

When one select one row by entering a ‘2’, the program displays a list of the fields in database files and allows to enter the sequence number of the corresponding field on the stream file (described on the screen as FTP file because it is normally received by FTP).

See the example below:

In the example above, the field number 1 of the stream file (see From FldNo) is mapped to the field CT0010 of the AS/400 database file, the field number 2 is mapped to CT0030 and the field number 3 is mapped to CT0020.

Once the mappings have been defined, it is possible to perform the copy by using the command UCPYFTP that prompts the user for the following data:

Also in this case the user is required to specify the separator and the decimal point used for the numbers.

It should be mentioned that the field mappings must be specified only once for each couple of files and that the copy command uses them automatically.

You can download the AS/400 and Linux/Unix/PC File Transfer Utilities from:

==> AS/400 File Transfer Utilities

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AS/400 (iSeries) CL and RPG ILE Training by Example

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:34:12 +0000

This e-book offers a progressive training on the AS/400 (iSeries) CL and RPG languages. It uses real life applications to investigate the latest ILE options and develop your programming skills..

The course starts with simple programs and then examines more advanced concepts such as subfiles programming, use of message subfiles, use of embedded SQL, development of ILE modules and binding into programs and service programs .

The index of the Ebooks is as follows:

Introduction

The OPM and ILE program models

The simple Cross Reference Utility

The Logical Database Structure

Skill No.1 – Database files / Tables creation

Skill No.2 – Developing a simple RPG program

Skill No.3 – Developing a general utility CL program

Skill No.3 – Developing simple CL utilities

Skill No.4 – Developing a subfile application (display)

Skill No.4 – Developing a subfile application (program)

Skill No.5 – Displaying messages in a message subfile

Skill No.6 – Using embedded SQL

Skill No.7 – Developing a printing program

Skill No.8 – Using page by page subfiles

Skill No.9 – Introducing ILE modules, procedures and service programs

Skill No.10 – Using Service Programs

Skill No.11 – Using ILE modules with a printing program

Skill No.12 – Developing a Batch Application

More ILE concepts

Bibliography

This is not a course for beginners because it assumes some basic knowledge of the RPG language. It is meant to help people who already have some knowledge of the language and want to improve their skills.

This book is no longer free, but you can download it for a good price from:

==> RPG ILE Training Ebook Download

You will find also useful books on this subject at Amazon as follows: