We all get into routine habits in our jobs. But does that mean we're doing things the best way?

Written by David Tansley

Over many years of administrating AIX systems, I developed some good and some not-so-good habits. I have managed to get rid of my bad habits. In this article, I will share with you from my own experience what habits I now avoid and what habits I embrace, or to put it another way, good habits to have.

Learn some seldom-known yet practical techniques to utilize User Space Objects.

Written by Junlei Li

Before I read the post Re: *Usrspc question by Simon Coulter in 2001 in the Midrange-l mailing list, I had never known that the Display File (DSPF) command can be used to display or change the contents of a User Space (*USRSPC) object. I realized that as a special type of space object designed to be used by user programs, *USRSPC objects are treated slightly differently from other MI space objects by some OS-level utilities. In this article, I'll introduce several tips about utilizing *USRSPC objects that will probably ease your daily work quite a lot. For detailed discussion about how to use *USRSPC objects via CL commands, APIs, or MI instructions, please refer to the following resources:

Learn a way to make debugging a bit easier.

Written by Junlei Li

I used to debug programs under Linux with gdb. The versatile supports for expressions provided by gdb allow programmers to evaluate expressions containing any kind of constants, variables, High-Level Language (HLL)-specific operators, type casts, and even function calls. The IBM i System Debugger supports neither calls to user procedures nor calls to language-specific library routines or built-in functions (BIFs)—for example, RPG BIFs, COBOL intrinsic functions, or CL BIFs. Well, the IBM i System Debugger supports a number of debug built-ins that can be used in expressions within a debug command.

Why you need it.

Written by Mike Stegeman

Development environments on the IBM Power Systems (AS/400, System i, iSeries, IBM i) can be a challenge to learn, control, and document. Changes in the source code and changes in personnel are just a couple of the hurdles you must clear in order to gain and retain control of programs and files.

And that's where SEQUEL Software can help.

Some charts are easier to understand if the original data is also available. Learn how to place a chart and a data table side by side and then link them so the user can interact with both.

Written by Rafael Victória-Pereira

Usually a well-chosen and properly formatted chart is all it takes to get your message across, but there are times when you also want to include the original data. You'd do this to provide the level of detail that some charts lack (see the Intensity Map, for instance). This can be achieved by using two APIs simultaneously; you'll need to add the Table API to whichever chart you want to show. In this TechTip, I'll use the Combo API side by side with it to achieve this:

In this tip, I present two slightly unusual types of chart, named "Bars of Stuff" and "Piles of Money." Some presentations require a more humorous and lighter tone, especially if the news isn't good!

Written by Rafael Victória-Pereira

After so many TechTips about serious charts, it's time to have a little fun, so let's start with "Bars of Stuff." This is basically a bar chart in which the bars are replaced with a cartoon-like object. The image choices include Train (default), Chocolate, Rope, Truffle, Worm, and Horse. From a technical point of view, this is a very simple chart: it supports two columns, "label" and "value," and multiple rows. There's a little trick on the rows, though: instead of showing only the title of the row next to the "bar," you can also include a string, defined by you.

C functions provide capabilities that are useful to you as an RPG IV programmer.

Written by Jim Martin

Note: This article is an excerpt from the book Functions in Free-Format RPG IV, published by MC Press.

The data types used by C functions are nearly all integer, float, and null-terminated strings. RPG IV supports all integer and float data types, and can convert null-terminal strings to RPG character fields, and vice versa (using the %str BIF). The integer and float data types available with RPG IV make it easy to pass variable data back and forth between RPG IV and C.

Using the C run-time library functions and setting up the prototypes for C functions is an easy way to use features available in the C language.

Written by Jim Martin

Note: This article is an excerpt from the book Functions in Free-Format RPG IV, published by MC Press.

Most RPG programmers don't know the C programming language and avoid technical articles or discussions that have anything to do with it. Until 1993, so did I. That year, I took some college classes in which C was the only language that could be used for assignments. I found that C was very different from RPG, but writing my own functions was very appealing. When I returned to an RPG environment in 1994, I assumed that I would not see any C programming again. In late 1994, however, IBM introduced RPG IV and ILE. At that point, integrating C functions with RPG IV programs became a possibility.