RPG programmers know how powerful the language is, and IBM just keeps making it better.

Written by Joe Pluta

Welcome to RPG for Version 7.1 of IBM i. Version 7.1 is a marked departure from previous releases. For example, this is the first time we've gone from one complete version release to another—from 6.1 to 7.1. A lot of buzz is in the air about some of the big-ticket items, like the new Open Access capabilities of RPG. But for those of us in the trenches, IBM has done a great job of taking the world's best language for developing business logic and making it even better. Let me show you a few examples of just what they've done for us.

Send inquiry messages and receive a reply! Use the power of messages for error-handling, user feedback, or user interaction.

Written by Bruce Vining

In previous articles, we have seen how to send a variety of messages to the user of an application. The message types covered include *ESCAPEs in the case of hard errors ("Inform Users of Problems by Sending Error Messages from Application Programs"), *DIAGnostics in order to provide additional information on error conditions  ("More on Sending Messages from an Application Program"), *COMPletion messages to indicate success in our task ("Sending Non-Error-Related Messages from an Application Program"), and *STATUS messages to keep the user informed about the current running of the application (also found in "Sending Non-Error-Related Messages from an Application Program"). Today, we'll look at sending *INQUIRY messages, which can be used for either success or failure, and receiving a response to the inquiry message.