How to change someone's PDM defaults

I have been asked this question twice this week:

Is there a way to change everyone's PDM settings without them having to into their own settings and making the change themselves?

Both people want to change the "file" that contains these setting either with a SQL statement or they would write a program to do so.

I do not know where the PDM settings are stored. I assume they are in a file, or possibly even files. As the data is IBM's data I would be very wary to change it as I have no idea of what the consequences are if I was to make a mistake.

Fortunately there is a command I could use that allows me to change a user's PDM defaults. The Change PDM Defaults command, CHGPDMDFT, has been around for a long as I can remember. It has one parameter for each of the PDM default values. When I prompt the CHGPDMDFT command the following is shown:

Change PDM Defaults (CHGPDMDFT) Type choices, press Enter. User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Name Object library . . . . . . . . . *SAME Name, *SAME, *SRCLIB, *CURLIB Replace object . . . . . . . . . *SAME *SAME, *NO, *YES Create/compile in batch . . . . *SAME *SAME, *YES, *NO Run in batch . . . . . . . . . . *SAME *SAME, *NO, *YES Save/restore option . . . . . . *SAME *SAME, *SINGLE, *ALL Job description . . . . . . . . *SAME Name, *SAME, *USRPRF Library . . . . . . . . . . . Name, *LIBL, *CURLIB Change type and text . . . . . . *SAME *SAME, *YES, *NO Option file . . . . . . . . . . *SAME Name, *SAME Library . . . . . . . . . . . Name, *LIBL, *CURLIB Option file member . . . . . . . *SAME Name, *SAME Full screen mode . . . . . . . . *SAME *SAME, *NO, *YES Log option commands . . . . . . *SAME *SAME, *NO, *YES Exit lists on ENTER . . . . . . *SAME *SAME, *NO, *YES Bottom

Looking at the command's attributes I see that there is no validation program for it. This means that I will have to be careful what changes I make, as I could put bad data into the user's PDM defaults.

Let's start by changing the PDM default settings for myself, user profile is SIMON.

01 CHGPDMDFT USER(SIMON) 02 CHGTYPTXT(*NO) 03 FILE(MYLIB/TESTFILE)

I have deliberately placed the three parameters I have used on separate lines to make the command easier to understand.

Line 1: The only required parameter is the user profile.

Line 2: I always like not being able to change the type of text of members and objects. This stop me from accidentally wiping out a source type or description by an over enthusiastic use of the Field Exit key.

Line 3: This file is not a copy of the default PDM options file. This is just a random file I had used for some other purpose. I just wanted to prove as there is no validation program I need to be careful what I change.

After the command has been executed the user must exit PDM, and then re-enter it for the new defaults to be loaded.

Change Defaults Change type and text . . . . N Option file . . . . . . . . TESTFILE Library . . . . . . . . . MYLIB

If I have to change a few people's user profiles I would use the CHGPDMDFT directly. If I have a larger number of profiles to change I would do this programmatically. I would use a two step process:

1. Gather a list of user profiles I want to change
2. Make the change using the CHGPDMDFT command

First step: If I want to change all the programmers' PDM profiles I would make a list of them using the following SQL statement:

01 CREATE TABLE QTEMP.OUTFILE 02 (USER) 03 AS 04 (SELECT CHAR(AUTHORIZATION_NAME,10) 05 FROM QSYS2.USER_INFO_BASIC 06 WHERE STATUS = '*ENABLED' 07 AND USER_CLASS_NAME = '*PGMR' 08 AND SUBSTR(AUTHORIZATION_NAME,1,1) <> 'Q') 09 WITH DATA

Line 1: If I am going to have a list of programmers, I am going to need to put that list into a SQL Table or a DDS file. By using the CREATE TABLE SQL statement the definition of the table is dictated by the Select statement contained within.

Line 2: There is only one column of results, the User Profile. I have decided to name this column USER as it is a lot easier to handle than the name of the column this comes from in the Select statement, AUTHORIZATION_NAME.

Line 4: As I said, above, the only column in the results is the value from the AUTHORIZATION_NAME, which is the user profile. I have used the CHAR scalar function to convert this column from variable character, VARCHAR, to fixed length character, CHAR, of ten characters. This makes it easier for a CL program to handle.

Line 5: I am retrieving the results from the USER_INFO_BASIC SQL view as it returns its results faster than the full USER_INFO View.

Line 6: I only want to include enabled user profiles, not disabled ones.

Line 7: All profiles that have the *PGMR, programmer, user class.

Line 8: Exclude any profile where the first character is 'Q'. This is my crude attempt to exclude any IBM user profiles, for example: QPGMR.

Line 9: I need to include the WITH DATA at the end of my Create Table statement to ensure that results are returned and inserted into the created table.

I would then need to look at the results, for example using the following SQL Select statement:

01 SELECT * FROM QTEMP.OUTFILE

I would then review the results from the above SQL Select statement and remove any entries I do not want to change their PDM Defaults, and add others I want to change.

The second step is the program the reads this file and makes the changes using the CHGPDMDFT command.

My CL program looks like:

01 PGM 02 DCL VAR(&LOOP) TYPE(*LGL) VALUE('1') 03 DCLF FILE(QTEMP/OUTFILE) 04 DOWHILE COND(&LOOP) 05 RCVF 06 MONMSG MSGID(CPF0000) EXEC(LEAVE) 07 CHGPDMDFT USER(&USER) + 08 CHGTYPTXT(*NO) + 09 FILE(PGMRLIB/PDMOPTS) + 10 MBR(QAUOOPT) 11 ENDDO 12 ENDPGM

Line 2: This is the indicator variable I will be using to condition the Do-loop contained within this program.

Line 3: Declaration of the input file. This is the file I created with the SQL statement above, and have reviewed and checked before this program would be called.

Lines 4 – 11: The never-ending Do-loop, condition by the indicator &LOOP.

Line 5: Receive (read) the next record from the file.

Line 6: If there was an error with the receive, end-of-file, records, locked, etc., I exit the Do loop with the LEAVE command.

Lines 7 – 10: Changing the PDM defaults from the user profile received from the file, with the CHGPDMDFT command.

After compiling the program, I run it. I can then check the PDM options for some of the user profiles I changed, and they look like:

Change Defaults Change type and text . . . . N Option file . . . . . . . . PDMOPTS Library . . . . . . . . . PGMRLIB

The change was successful. Job well done.

 

You can learn more about the CHGPDMDFT command from the IBM website here.

 

This article was written for IBM i 7.5, and should work for some earlier releases too.