Re: Emulating STRPCCMD

Hi Rory,

Is this 5250 emulator something you have the code for? If so, what you could do is have the emulator launch a signed Java applet. That way, the 5250 emulator running in a browser can still handle STRPCCMD. (This is what Profound's 5250-in-a-browser product does, by the way -- though I haven't looked at the details of how the Java applet works.)

Or, you don't have the code for the emulator, then I suppose you could provide your own STRPCCMD that runs above IBM's in the library list -- but there's a significant challenge in doing this securely. With sockets, you'd need a program installed on the PC that can accept a connect from the IBM i, securely, without providing a userid/password, etc. So you'd need some way to do this without opening up the PC to any sort of command from anywhere, and that can be a significant challenge. But, something like digital keys or certificates might be a good solution.

When it comes to actually running the command, what I did in the open source TN5250 was attempt to run the command via the Win32 CreateProcess() API. If that returns -1, indicating an error, we try again, this time prefixing the command with "cmd.exe /c ". (Assuming that it's a DOS command)

It's not totally perfect... Client Access appears to do something slightly differently, I haven't put my finger on what it is. But, it seems to be close enough.

-SK



On 12/10/2012 5:19 PM, Rory Hewitt wrote:

All,

Does anyone know of a way that I can emulate the behavior of STRPCCMD?

I know that STRPCCMD sends a 'hidden' screen to the emulator that contains
some control characters, followed by the actual command to be run, and the
emulator then executes that command.

I have access to the 5250 data-stream but my 'emulator' (actually a
data-stream parser which displays the screen in the browser) is not able to
run STRPCCMD. I would like to be able to 'recognize' the hidden screen
(easy) and then invoke some processing to execute the same functionality as
is executed by STRPCCMD. Is this possible, perhaps using a socket to run a
command on the PC?

I've posted this in the RPG400-l list as the software will most likely be
written using RPG...

Thanks,

Rory