If you're putting data on the Web, you likely need to compress it first.

By Tom Snyder

As businesses provide more data to the Internet, one common administrative task required for preparing the data is to compress the data into either a zip or a tar file.

The IBM i UNIX environment called QShell provides many capabilities, including the jar and tar commands used to compress data. To enter QShell, go to the command line and type STRQSH to bring up a command line in the UNIX environment. Here, you can try out your commands interactively to check the syntax and behavior of the commands that you are executing. I primarily use QShell for operations that I want to perform in the IFS. In this TechTip, I will compress a text file named test.xml that I have stored in a public folder off of the root directory of the IFS.

Ant is a simple, effective tool that can guide you toward a solid build infrastructure.

By Joe Cropper

In last week's article, I introduced the problem of a convoluted build process and presented Apache's Ant as an effective solution to the simplification of the process. In this week's article, we'll look at a complete example, including everything from the source code to the build artifacts within the Eclipse integrated development environment. This article assumes that the reader has a basic understanding of Eclipse and its Java projects.

First and foremost, the build process must produce consistent results, but efficient use of developers' and builders' time is important too.

By Joe Cropper

Go into this directory. Select these source files. Right-click here. Export this. Rename that. Copy the renamed file there. Does this sound familiar? Yes! It is your build process! Wouldn't it be nice if you could (conveniently) build your Java project with a single mouse-click or a single command? The good news is that you can--with the Apache Software Foundation's Ant tool (named "Ant" by its creator, James Duncan Davidson, because it's a little thing that can build big things).

IBM continues to make life easier for SQL developers.

By Kent Milligan

As SQL becomes more widely used by i5/OS developers, it's important for IBM to continue to enhance the tools and utilities supporting the SQL interface to increase the adoption of SQL. The Run SQL Statements (RUNSQLSTM) system command is one of those SQL utilities that is enhanced in V6R1 to make life easier for SQL developers.

Quit storing your applications' property values in data areas, and make your programs easier to understand.

By David Mayle

One of the programming practices I've never cared for is the use of data areas to store property values for an application. While a data area is a useful tool for the programmer who designed the system, it isn't user-friendly for those of us who need to work on it later.

Use SQL functions to create RPG functions.

By Kevin Forsythe

If you've been using SQL, you've probably noticed that there are many functions built into SQL that RPG doesn't have. We could go to a lot of effort to re-create those in RPG, but it's much easier to just leverage the existing SQL FUNCTIONS. To make this happen, we need to create an RPG module with embedded SQL. That module will contain a series of date-related functions, and we'll compile that module into a service program for use by other RPG programs.

Reveal frame secrets to make your Web applications act cooler.

By Jan Jorgensen

I like frames. I know a lot of Web developers will dislike that I say that, and if you don't believe me, go to Google and search for "I hate frames." But I don't care, and I'll tell you why I like them.

When I develop Web applications, I do it in-house. This means that I'm most interested in providing functionality. Normally, I don't use a lot of images, and I don't  use Flash-not because I don't like them but because I consider myself a Web programmer, not a Web designer. What's the difference?