RPG Advanced

April 2010 IBM Rational Developer for i (renamed in 2008 from WDSc), has been withdrawn from market and is replaced by the Rational Developer for Power Systems Software – RPG and COBOL Development Tools for IBM i. The latest release of Rational Developer for Power includes all of the features of Rational Developer for i (RDi...
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What a Lifelong DB2 Fanatic Sees in MySQL Published: February 3, 2010 by Susan Gantner In my mind, you can't beat our database. It's not only integrated into the operating system, it's also incredibly flexible. You can use SQL to create and access data just like databases on other systems but you can also use the...
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In RPG, there is a subtle but important difference between the VARYING keyword that is used to assign a variable-length attribute to a character field and the OPTIONS(*VARSIZE) keyword that is used to permit a variable of any length to be passed as a parameter to a subprocedure or program. Often these two different...
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Activation Groups Creating RPG programs out of modules, is a two-step process:  This includes  CRTRPGMOD (Create RPG Module) and then CRTPGM (Create Program).   For single-module programs, these steps can be ...
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Binding ( or Linking ) "service programs" (*SRVPGM). The CRTPGM command is used to combine one or more *MODULEs into a *PGM, while CRTSRVPGM is used to combine one or more *MODULEs into a *SRVPGM. Both of these commands, are part of the "binder" or linker of OS/400. ...
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SubProcedures can return a value like a function, and they support recursion. A program with a subprocedure will not run in the default activation group, so include an H-spec to force it to run in a named activation group. ex: QILE H dftactgrp(*no) actgrp('QILE') F*-------- := -...
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The MOVEA (move with array) operation code may not be supported in Free Format, but that doesn't stop Bob Cozzi, or us, from making it work anyway - in his Jan 12th, "Tuesday Tip" Cozzi takes a page from his upcoming book on free-format programming and illustrates two alternatives to MOVEA in free-format RPG...
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At one time, I took an rpg program that did something that is not done very often and saved it as a sample for my reference and, sometimes when i would write some routine that was rare enough to be forgotten, i would save that little piece of code in it so that...
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All too often programmers get lazy and don't think of the consequences. They insert some kind of "if X then exit", failing to see that they have just put one more nail in the coffin of a dying program which, if it is only one of many, could lead to the replacement of all...
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