Re: Job Triggering on FTP Completion

Brian Piotrowski wrote:

Are there any processes or method in the 400 that will cause a
job to be executed once an FTP job has been completed? We have
one of our suppliers send us a series of FTP files that we
process at a set time through the job scheduler. Although the
file transfers end usually at a specific time, there are times
where the file is delayed and it might not finish until later.
We are looking to execute a processing job as soon as the last
file is transferred to us. So with that said, what's the easiest
way to accomplish this task?

Any advice would be appreciated.

The easiest is to request that the sender code a QUOTE RCMD SomeCmD to activate the job after [e.g. using SBMJOB], or to notify of [e.g. using SNDMSG], the FTP activity completion. Completion notification could instead be effected by the sender issuing an APPEND of a single record file, as insert of a row to a specific database file with an INSERT TRIGGER which then starts [or with more indirection will notify the need to start] the scheduled process. The latter is preferable if QUOTE RCMD is prevented or the script must not include anything other than record data transfer.

The FTP exit program(s) should be able to identify [the start of] an FTP process. I believe there is still no exit defined for end of session; nor either of the QUIT or CLOSE FTP subcommands. The start of session is useful, but more complexity might be required than just that; e.g. to denote the end. The simplest method to denote the end of the FTP activity is using ALCOBJ of a specific object, e.g. a *DTAARA, for which the lock is implicitly dropped at the end of the session. A couple of past discussions of similar:

http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/200807/msg00150.html
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc/browse_frm/thread/3fc1c872cd0cc2dc/b66b45e13ce9f492

Regards, Chuck