Programming alternatives to the AS/400 FTP command.

Hi guys,

I am writing an AS/400 application for a client that needs to place data
(customers and products etc) on their ISP. This data will then be downloaded
from the ISP via a dialup connection to a database on a laptop computer
(using FTP on their laptop). The data will then be processed on the laptop
and another file (orders and changes) uploaded from the laptop to the ISP
(again using FTP) from where the AS/400 will collect and process it. This
will be done on many laptops.

To avoid files being overwritten they will be in unique batches, and to
avoid the AS/400 downloading files while they are still being written to,
the PC will add a suffix to the batch after it has uploaded it. The AS/400
will only download batches with the correct suffix and then delete batches
it has processed. The AS/400 will also leave an acknowledgement file so that
the PC knows the batch has been process and can delete it itself.

All in all quite a complicated comms handshake but it should be very
effective.

My problem occurs with the AS/400 FTP command. This is a very clumsy way of
doing things. At the moment my design is for the AS/400 to write out the FTP
commands required (open, user, put, get, close etc.) to a source member at
run time and then use this member as the input for the FTP command. The FTP
command will output to an error member which my program will read after the
completion of the FTP command. If there were any errors the program can the
write a new FTP member to retry them etc.

What I want to know (finally!) is if there is a smarter way of doing this?

Can I, for instance, in ILE RPG open a connection to an ISP and then put or
get data, rename and delete files etc? This would hopefully give the
feedback I require as each operation executes, so that I don't for example,
delete a file that I have failed to get.

Any ideas? Any examples?

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