Technology Refresh PTFs out today

Today is the day the PTFs for IBM i 7.3 TR3 and 7.2 TR7 are released.

	IBM i 7.3 TR3	IBM i 7.2 TR7
Base TR	SF99727 level 3	SF99717 level 7
Db2 for i	SF99703 level 7	SF99702 level 19

Yes, the Db2 for i is not included in the Base TR PTF.

IBM were a bit cheeky with the some of the other products they announced.

	IBM i 7.3 TR3	IBM i 7.2 TR7
RDi	November 21,2017
RPG	"Available with PTFs delivered later in 2017"

When I finished publishing this post I am going to be asking the IBM i hosting service I use, RZKH, to download these PTFs.

Fetching more rows when using multiple row Fetch

In an earlier post I gave an example of how to fill a "load all" subfile using a SQL multiple row Fetch and a data structure. A "load all" subfile can have a maximum of 9,999 records, therefore, what happens if I have more than 9,999 records/rows in my file/table?

I would need to load the next 9,999 records from the point where the first multiple row Fetch finished. Fortunately this is simple using OFFSET in the declaration of the cursor.

Just as a quick reminder: Why would I use a multiple row Fetch to get the data for a "load all" subfile. By using the multiple rows Fetch I would fetch 9,999 records in one file I/O. If I used the RPG read operation code I would need to perform 9,999 I/O operations.

Replacing parts of strings using regexp

The fifth installment of my examples of the using regular expressions added to Db2 for i as part of IBM i 7.3 TR2 and 7.2 TR6 is going to be about REGEXP_REPLACE. I can already replace parts of strings using SQL's REPLACE and RPG's %SCANRPL, but REGEXP_REPLACE allows me to use regular expressions to find the pattern I wish to replace.

The syntax for the REGEXP_REPLACE is:

REGEXP_REPLACE(source-string, search-pattern, replacement-string, start-position, occurrence, flags)

Using Regexp to substring

In this third installment of the regular expression functions added to Db2 for i is going to be about REGEXP_SUBSTR. The SQL SUBSTRING and RPG %SUBST built in function need a fixed start and number of positions. The REGEXP_SUBST allows me to use regular expressions patterns to find and substring the pattern I desire.

All of these Regular Expressions functions were added to Db2 for i as part of the 7.3 TR2 and 7.2 TR6 updates. Rather than repeat what I have in the earlier posts, I will refer you to them for more details.

The format for this function is:

REGEXP_SUBSTR(source-string, search-pattern, starting-position, occurrence, flags, group)

More information about the new TRs

I saw this on Twitter this morning. Quote from Tim Rowe, business architect for application development on IBM i:

"We will keep updating RPG as long as we keep updating IBM i and we have a long road map"

A day after the announcement of the latest Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.3 and 7.2 a few more links are coming out from various IBM sources which I consider worthy of sharing:

• Interesting Db2 items in the latest TR! - Mike Cain
• New Db2 Web Query Version 2.2.1 Announced! - Doug Mack
• IBM i Virtualization Details
• IBM i on IBM Power Systems
• DB2 for i 2017 Group PTF Schedule

IBM i 7.3 TR3 and 7.2 TR7 announced

In a blog post published this morning Steve Will, chief architect of IBM i, announced the new Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.3, TR3, and 7.2, TR7. I am not going to give a long list of links to all the new and enhanced features and functions, the Enhancements pages, listed below, do that. What I will mention are the things that caught my eye.

As with earlier TRs there are many additions and changes to Db2 for i (SQL). These will keep me busy over the next few months writing about them for this blog.

New Technology Refreshes information found

Ahead of the announcement of the new Technology Refreshes I found the following pages listing some of the information of what is included within them.

• IBM i 7.3 TR3
• IBM i 7.2 TR7

I assume that the official announcement will be made tomorrow at the COMMON Fall conference. When it is made I will write another post including all the relevant information and links to the various articles and pages.