Jon Paris and Susan Gantner

Recently I came upon a couple of questions on internet lists asking for an easy method to create flat files in the IFS. Not CSV files, but rather simple text files where individual data items are in fixed character positions. Various somewhat…

We once wrote an article describing an RPG Open Access (OA) Handler designed to simplify the production of Character Separated Variable (CSV) files that avoided the need to use the CPYTOIMPF command or to code directly to the C I/O functions. If…

Do you ever sit back and think to yourself how much things have changed in the last few years, particularly in the area of IT? So many new devices and services are available today that were almost in the realm of science fiction only 10 years or so…

We heard recently from someone who ran into difficulty using code from one of our recent articles on Open Access because they didn't have the required library QOAR on their system. So they contacted IBM support for help. I suspect some of you may be…

Since we wrote our first articles on RPG Open Access (OA) many months ago, we have taught the topic to hundreds of RPGers. The more people we taught, the more obvious it became that the apparent complexity of writing an OA handler turned many…

Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. In my previous tip I introduced you to an RPG Open Access (OA) handler that facilitated writing to a data queue using conventional WRITE operations. As you saw, from the…

As we mentioned in our recent blog post, “Open Access—Oh the Thinks You Can Think!” , we’ve been thinking about different ways we can use RPG Open Access (OA). One approach suggested by IBM’s Dan Cruikshank was in the area of processing lists of data…

The more we work with Open Access for RPG the more we realize how much more we can do with it. For example, a couple of weeks ago Jon published an article detailing an RPG Open Access (OA) handler that allows entries to be written to a data queue…

Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. It has been a while since my last tip on RPG Open Access and now that everyone running IBM i V6 or 7 has access to it for no additional cost, I thought it was time to revisit…

In our previous article, “Handling Input Handlers With RPG Open Access,” we demonstrated the basics of writing an Open Access (OA) input handler for CSV files. In this article, we’re taking that same handler to the next level, adding additional…

Recently, we’ve been revisiting RPG Open Access. Last month, we explored an OA handler that used a Web service to convert currency values. In an earlier series on OA we explored a handler to write to the IFS so that programmers could write to IFS…

Print In our previous article, we discussed the basic design criteria for a buffer style Open Access (OA) handler that would let us access a currency exchange Web service using conventional RPG op-codes. As promised, this article describes the…

Print For this month’s column, we thought we’d revisit the subject of RPG Open Access (OA). Why? Because during several conversations at recent conferences it became obvious to us that IBM’s initial decision to charge for the feature caused many…

They love us. They really love us! Finally IBM Rational has admitted the folly of trying to persuade us to buy our own gifts and is giving us Open Access for free. Today's announcement confirms the rumors that have been circulating for the last few…

Building the Open Access handler was easier than we thought <p style="padding-bottom: 0px; line-height: 22px; margin: 20px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; padding-top: 0px"> This month, we want to introduce…

When IBM Rational Open Access (OAR): RPG Edition was announced, all the buzz was about how it would (or would not) impact the green-screen world. But the possibilities for OAR go far beyond workstations. Perhaps more to the point, while few people…

Discover how simple it is to create a generic handler This month, we’re focusing on our first real foray into the world of Open Access for RPG (OAR) handlers. In previous articles, we talked about OAR in general terms; this time we’ll get down to…

Simpler steps with INFDS and a look at Open Access This is the promised follow-on to the March EXTRA article on SPECIAL files, “Get More from RPG.” Before we do anything else, we want to mention two things. First, several people have told us they…

Open Access and new built-in functions top the list Did you hear there was an IBM i 7.1 announcement recently? In some IBM i announcement events in recent years, trying to glean any information about RPG language enhancements among the deluge of new…

Other enhancements include extended capabilities for sorting and searching arrays, a new "mailmerge" scan-and-replace function, the ability to use the database's long names, and relaxed prototyping requirements. So did the Easter Bunny bring plenty…