There are times when I have want an easy way to put values from a file, or table, "horizontally" into one column rather than vertically with more than one row.
| "Vertical" | "Horizontal" |
TYPE THING ANIMAL ELK ANIMAL HAWK ANIMAL MEERKAT ANIMAL ORCA |
TYPE THINGS ANIMAL ELK, HAWK, MEERKAT, ORCA, SEA L FRUIT APPLE, FUJI, BLACKBERRY, GRAPEF VEGETABLE SQUASH |
A pair of introductions to RPG as part of IBM i 7.3 TR2, and 7.2 TR6, are the minimum and maximum built in functions, %MIN and %MAX. The maximum built in function returns the greatest value in a list of variables and/or values. The minimum returns the lowest value from a list of variables and/or values. Otherwise the way they are defined and the rules governing them are the same.
To use these functions there must be at least two values, and they must be of the same type. What I mean is that all of the values must be some type of numeric, character, date, time, or timestamp. I cannot mix types in the values. Pointers cannot be used.
They are so simple I can go straight to examples of using them. Let me start with a variety of numeric data types:
Something I have noticed since the installation of IBM i 7.3 TR2 and 7.2 TR6 on the partitions I use, is a change to the compile listings of SQLRPGLE programs.
The process to create an object from a SQLRPGLE source member is a multi-step process:
I am grateful to the folks at RZKH for applying the PTFs for the latest TR for IBM i 7.3, TR2. I started looking at the new features and functions added to RPG as part of this TR and decided to write about those first (Note: Same functions are included in 7.2 TR6 too). There were three additions, the one that first caught my eye was the ability to nest data structures.
Nested data structures are only available when defining data structures in free format RPG. If you are still using fixed format definitions this is another sign from IBM that it is time to move to free format RPG.
Inserting a nested data structure is pretty much as I would have expected, see below.
Steve Will, chief architect for the IBM i operating system, announced in a tweet today that the end of support, EOS, for release 7.1 will be on April 30, 2018.
Often I get the same question asked by several people, this time I have been asked the same question five times just this week, and I have been told that this is a question people have been asked in interviews:
How do you write data to different members in the same file using RPGLE?
The file has ten members, and you need to write data to the fifth and sixth members in one RPGLE program.
An updated version IBM's IBM I on Power – Performance FAQ was published today, called a "Spring refresh" by Steve Will the IBM i chief architect.
The What's new in the latest version?, section 1.3 on page 11, lists eight new questions added to the document.
If you are just a programmer type, not dealing with the finer points of tuning a Power server, there are sections to do with optimizing Cobol and RPG too:
Good stuff to read, learn, and apply to your work.
The document is a PDF file and can be found on IBM's web site here.