SQL excels at set-at-a-time processing, and what better application than archiving your data?

Written by Joe Pluta

No matter how much disk you have, you fill it. It's a corollary to Parkinson's Law, which posits that work expands to fill the time allotted. It's the same with databases; despite the ever-increasing amount of disk available (who could have imagined a 2TB disk for the home computer?), you will always run out, so at some point you will have to reduce the amount of data in your database. As it turns out, though, SQL can provide you with significant help.

Find out the rest of the story about PRGDLTRCDS and Watch considerations.

By Bruce Vining

This is the sixth in a series of articles on detecting that certain messages have been sent on your system and then making processing decisions based on those messages. The underlying technology, known as Watch support, became available with V5R4.

It's easy with the Retrieve Call Stack API.

By Bruce Vining

In our last column, "More-Flexible Testing of Your CL Program Error-Handling," we left the SNDESCAPE program with the limitation of our having to hardcode the name of the program being tested: MONESCAPE. Today, we will look at how to dynamically determine the program that we want to send an escape message to. We will do this by using the Retrieve Call Stack (QWVRCSTK) API, which is documented here.

A database access class or function might be in order.

Written by Jeff Olen

To encourage native System i developers to make the switch to PHP, the Zend Core provides some data access methods that closely resemble native file access on the System i. If you're used to using SETLL, READ, CHAIN, and UPDATE in RPG, you may find these data access methods more intuitive than other alternatives. We applaud this effort to encourage RPG developers to use PHP, but there are some things you should think about before starting down this path.

Dynamically specify files in RPG without the use of embedded SQL.

Written by Tom Snyder

Do you have physical files with the same file format that are separated into multiple physical files--whether it be for legal reasons, query speed, or storage archiving--which requires you to keep modifying your programs when the new files are created? This article will show you how to continue creating new physical files, without the need for additional program compiling and maintenance.

Learn how to control the RGZPFM operation.

Written by Bruce Vining

This is the fifth in a series of articles on detecting that certain messages have been sent on your system and then making processing decisions based on those messages. The underlying technology being used is known as Watch support and became available with V5R4.

Modernization is one way to enhance the value of an application, but reducing back-end maintenance expense is a close second.

Written by Chris Smith

The trend toward modernization of RPG legacy systems is in full swing largely because companies realize it makes more sense economically to upgrade the front-ends of these applications than it does to rewrite or replace them. What you don't hear much about, however, is the job of maintaining the back-end of these programs that may have been written 20 years ago.

Use message replacement data along with the Command Analyzer Retrieve exit point.

Written by Bruce Vining

In our last column, "Testing Your CL Program Error-Handling," we looked at a rather simplistic SNDESCAPE exit program and noted several assumptions in how the program is written: