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30 years of The System
On June 21st 1988, IBM launched the AS/400. This was replaced in 2001 by the iSeries which, in turn, was followed by the IBM i on Power. For 30 years, IBM have managed to deliver Read more…
Notes
LTRIM, RTRIM and Trim Expressions
I have to admit that, when trimming strings with SQL, I tend to just use the TRIM function to strip off all leading and trailing spaces. But the LTRIM and RTRIM functions really do deserve Read more…
Notes
Handling divide by zero in SQL
Division by zero is something that, sooner or later, we all have to capture. For the rest of this post, I am using a small temporary table that I have imaginatively named DIV0. It has Read more…
Notes
Returning data structures from Procedures
This post stems from recent conversation on the subject of prototyped parameters. I always pass parameters as read only (using the const keyword) in order to ensure that no unexpected changes in the called procedure Read more…
Notes
Combining Counts for multiple tables
It’s surprising how many times you need to know whether a record exists in any one of two or more tables. Traditionally, you would have to check each table individually until you either find a Read more…
Notes
On holding jobs rather than job queues
Several months ago, I talked about Debugging RPG Programs in Batch and said that, before you submit your job, you should first hold the job queue. While this isn’t bad advice, exactly, it’s not what Read more…
Notes
Service Programs, signatures and RTVBNDSRC
I have talked about service programs in the past and, at the time, I mentioned that you need a binding source without really saying why. So, to revisit the subject, using the binding language allows Read more…
Notes
Copying data between heterogeneous databases with CPYFRMIMPF
Last week I mentioned the CPYTOIMPF command and how easy it makes reformatting data so that it can be handled by other platforms. Not surprisingly the IBM i makes it just as easy to handle Read more…
Notes
Copying data between heterogeneous databases with CPYTOIMPF
One of the many things that the IBM i (and its predecessors) has always been good at is exchanging data with other platforms. And one thing that often surprises me is that people often don’t Read more…
Notes
Guaranteed exit code with ON-EXIT
Here’s handy: The ON-EXIT operation code begins the ON-EXIT section. The ON-EXIT section contains code that runs every time that the procedure ends, whether it ends normally or abnormally. The ON-EXIT section runs under the Read more…