It is now easier searching message files

I have always found it a bother to search for IBM i message ids. Which message file contains the particular message id I want? What messages could I use for a date validation error? Etc. I always had wished for an easier way to perform searches like this.

Fortunately the latest Technology Refresh, IBM i 7.3 TR6, has a new Db2 for i view to make my searches for messages so much easier. The view MESSAGE_FILE_DATA returns a row for each message from all the message files in the IBM i partition I am using. I am not going to describe what the columns are here, as I think their names explain what they contain. For a full list of all the columns contained in this view click on the link to IBM's documentation at the bottom of this post.

Everything you can see with the Display Message Description command, DSPMSGD, is in this view. Using this view I do not have to give the message file's name when searching for a particular message id. For example if I am looking for the description for the message "RSC0082" I would have used the DSPMSGD command:

DSPMSGD RANGE(RSC0082)

And I would have received the message: "Message identifier RSC0082 not found in message file QCPFMSG in QSYS". To find the message's description using DSPMSGD I would either have to know which message file contains the "RSC" messages, or I would have to repeat this command for one message file at a time until I found the right one.

Using the MESSAGE_FILE_INFO view I could just use the following statement:

01 SELECT MESSAGE_FILE_LIBRARY,MESSAGE_FILE,MESSAGE_ID 02 FROM QSYS2.MESSAGE_FILE_DATA 03 WHERE MESSAGE_ID = 'RSC0082'

Alas, when I run this command on the IBM i I use for testing the statement errors with a SQL status of 42501 and SQL code of -403. When I look in the job log I found that I am not authorized to access the message file QQRYLIB/QQUMSG. Therefore, I need to make an addition to the where clause to exclude the message file QQUMSG, line 3.

01 SELECT MESSAGE_FILE_LIBRARY,MESSAGE_FILE,MESSAGE_ID 02 FROM QSYS2.MESSAGE_FILE_DATA 03 WHERE MESSAGE_FILE <> 'QQUMSG' 04 AND MESSAGE_ID = 'RSC0082'

The results show that this message is found in three message files:

MESSAGE_FILE_LIBRARY MESSAGE_FILE MESSAGE_ID #RPGLIB QRPG2MSG RSC0082 QDEVTOOLS QRPGMSG RSC0082 QRPG38 QRPG3MSG RSC0082

Another way I waste time with message files is looking for the right message. We all build message files to contain messages we want displayed on display files, etc., and over the years the message file gets bigger and bigger with all variations of errors that are checked for. To find the one I want to use for a specific error becomes a chore of scrolling through list of messages looking for the right text. Using MESSAGE_FILE_DATA I can just perform a wild card search on the message text.

01 SELECT MESSAGE_ID,MESSAGE_TEXT, 02 MESSAGE_SECOND_LEVEL_TEXT 03 FROM QSYS2.MESSAGE_FILE_DATA 04 WHERE MESSAGE_FILE = 'TESTMSGF' 05 AND MESSAGE_FILE_LIBRARY = 'MYLIB' 06 AND UPPER(MESSAGE_TEXT) LIKE '%DATE%'

Line 6: I need to convert the case of the characters in the MESSAGE_TEXT column to find every occurrence of "date". If I did not do this then searching for "DATE", "date", or "Date" would return different results.

My results show that I have two messages that are basically the same, TST0001 and TST0901.

MESSAGE ID MESSAGE_TEXT MESSAGE_SECOND_LEVEL_TEXT TST0001 Don't like that date! The date you have enter... TST0082 Date range invalid From date must be less ... TST0682 Date is outside of agreed range The data entered is eit... TST0901 Date entered is invalid The date you have enter...

I can now pick the message id to use, and not risk creating another duplicate message.

 

This may not be the sexiest thing added to this Technology Refresh, but it is one I am going to be using frequently.

 

You can learn more about the MESSAGE_FILE_DATA view from the IBM website here.

 

This article was written for IBM i 7.4 and 7.3 TR6.