Although the name is nothing short of horrible, the latest edition of the Rational tools finally gives i developers the tools they need.

Written by Joe Pluta

Even those of us who love Rational Developer for i (RDi) have been clamoring for an alternative to the venerable Screen Design Aid (SDA). It's been especially frustrating because the feature was already there in the tool. It was even called Screen Designer! It was right in front of our eyes, but it had that dreaded "Technology Preview" tag associated with it, along with a big disclaimer that it was not to be used for production work. Well, in the new Rational release, the preview tag is gone. Not only that, we got an extra bonus: a printer file designer (called the Report Designer)! In fact, this article is all about bonuses for the green-screen developer, so jump in!

Create a Java "Hello World" program with RPG.

Written by Tom Snyder

Editor's note: This article is excerpted from the MC Press book Advanced Integrated RPG.

Welcome to Advanced Integrated RPG (AIR), where RPG and Java work together to provide RPG with all of the capabilities that Java has to offer. This article contains excerpts from my new book that will show you how to start the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and display "Hello World" in RPG. This is a prerequisite to the upcoming article that will show you how to create PDFs from RPG!

Allocate and free up program storage at run time.

Written by Junlei Li

Many i5/OS APIs receive variable-length output parameters. Many i5/OS machine interface (MI) instructions expect variable-length output operands. Many algorithms implemented by user programs need to allocate program storage with unpredictable length until run time. All these facts lead to the need for allocating and freeing program storage at run time.

MoveA? Again? Still? Really?

Written by Jim Martin

Author's note: The subject of the RPG opcode MoveA (as it pertains to free-format RPG) keeps coming up in articles, blogs, and forums throughout our industry. It's time to put it to rest. The following excerpt from the book Free-Format RPG IV should supply all you need to handle the free-format conversion of this opcode.

Need to delimit and transfer data when System i Access is not an option?

Written by Tom Snyder

Delimiting data is a common way of separating fields within text files. If you're using the Data Transfer utility provided with System i Access, it's a simple matter of specifying the criteria for the download. But what if System i Access is not an option or you want to automate the data transfer without the dependency of a Windows Client?

Prototypes are one of the most powerful enhancements in ILE RPG, particularly in free-form; this article shows you just how productive prototypes can be.

Written by Joe Pluta

The CALLP opcode is arguably the most significant enhancement in ILE RPG. With the exception of free-format RPG, prototypes are certainly the most extensive addition to the language. Used properly together, the syntax of defining parameters as an extension of the D-specification and the various keywords that assign attributes to those parameters can completely transform the RPG language in ways you might not have foreseen. This article explains one of the subtlest but most important of those changes.

If you've been avoiding this technique, maybe you shouldn't be.

Written by Junlei Li

With the introduction of the ILE programming model, high-level languages (HLLs), including RPG, are enabled to make bound calls (procedure calls). This makes it possible for programs written in ILE RPG to cooperate with all the other HLLs available on the i5/OS, including Java, and to reuse all existing algorithms and functionalities that have been implemented in other HLLs. This fact is often regarded as proof of the RPG language's openness and modernization.

Secure your data using encryption/decryption APIs within RPG.

Written by Tom Snyder

The encryption/decryption APIs can be difficult to work with, so let's create some procedures to simplify all of the details of the initialization and data structures. We'll create the functionality that we are really looking for through the simplicity of reuse!