The Midrange Dynamics i-Can-Do-It Blog
Tips, opinions, tutorials and more from our IBM i modernization experts
Tech Tip: Customize Your Favorite Views
MDOpen has a cool little feature that lets you include your favorite right-click options on the line where you work the most. For example, you can update the object request line: Anytime you see the list of requested objects in tasks or RFP views, you are actually seeing the format presented in the…
Missing LF Members? We Can Help
A handful of our customers have encountered an intermittent issue with the last OS releases when adding members to a logical file. After researching the “missing member” issue, we determined that there is a known problem in the operating system. The issue occurs when creating logical files in a…
Scott’s Corner – Opcodes SND-MSG & ON-EXCP
With the release of 7.5 in Spring 2022, IBM added new opcodes to RPG that make it very easy to send and monitor for errors. At that time, they also provided PTFs to enable this support on 7.3 and 7.4. The new opcodes are: SND-MSG = sends a program message (similar to the SNDPGMMSG command in CL)…
Cool New Feature – Developer Library Naming Template
Have you ever wanted to be able to isolate or share a development environment? With MDChange, you now have more flexibility than ever. You can build a development library or source folder based on: Application Project Task Subtask RFP Branch Or any combination of the above. The combinations…
Scott’s Corner – OPTIONS(*CONVERT) Keyword
On December 2, PTFs were released that added some new features to RPG. One of those features is the OPTIONS(*CONVERT) keyword. You add this keyword to parameters on your prototypes, and RPG will automatically convert the parameter to a character data type. For example, consider the following…
Pick the Right Modernization Project
Modernization and updating to next-generation application development can be a daunting task. After all, taking years’ worth of code and updating it to modern code is a whale of a project. That’s why when starting out on your modernization journey, it’s important to pick your first project with…
Scott’s Corner – %SPLIT
Tip of the Month I’m pleasantly surprised about how easy it has become to work with delimited strings in RPG with the recent enhancements from IBM. For splitting a delimited string into fields, they added the %SPLIT built-in function in April of 2021. It works like this: In this example, record…
3 Key Objectives for Digital Transformation: Part 3
The Self Service Phenomenon In Part 1 of this series of three articles The Right Architecture was covered. Part 2 then discussed the primary business objective to Digital Transformation: Continuous Delivery. In this final part we will look at an objective that plays potentially the most significant…
3 Key Objectives for Digital Transformation: Part 2
Continuous Delivery In Part 1 of this series of three articles The Right Architecture was covered. Part 2 discusses the primary business objective to Digital Transformation: Continuous Delivery The last 15 years has seen economic and business dynamics increasing to an unprecedented level. In this…
3 Key Objectives for Digital Transformation: Part 1
The Right Architecture Drawing upon our own experiences and lessons learned in the global field of digital transformations over the last 5 years, this three part article covers three key objectives that any organisation needs to include in their Digital Transformation strategy/plan. When comparing…
Let Business Modernize IT, not IT
To IT, modernization means DDS to SQL, RPGIII to RPG Free, 5250 to Web, Web to Mobile, or any technology specific milestone or objective. To business, modernization means quicker to market, more market feedback, more sales channels, better buying power, lower operating costs, real-time performance,…