PRTCMDUSG RTVJOBA -- BPCS-L

From 
MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)

Below is cut & paste of information from an AS400network newsletter that I 
want to talk about ... I left their advertiser URLs included in hopes they 
will not get annoyed with me for forwarding their copyrighted stuff.  Item # 
4 affects BPCS & probably every other ERP & other software package that 
anyone is using on the 400.

PRTCMDUSG gets at a list of all programs that use a particular command.
I learned about this command in prior MIDRANGE-L discussion about 
cross-referencing where various software objects are used.

We have 800 CL programs in our BPCS 405 CD live environment library list that 
use RTVJOBA.  Some of them are our modifications, but most are vanilla base 
BPCS.
RTVJOBA is the first of the 5 commands listed in the newsletter that will 
return more information starting OS/400 V5.  This is not the whole picture, 
but I have to start somewhere.

RTVJOBA can be used to retrieve a lot of stuff about a job ... library list 
information is not its only usage, so in many cases the fact that OS400 V5 is 
going from 25 to 250 user libraries in the list won't make a bit of 
difference, but when the retrieval is to access the library list information, 
the fact that more data is coming back could have a detrimental effect 
depending on how the software is written, and depending on if & when we 
utilize the extra libraries.

The situation for BPCS V6 users is different than for BPCS 405 CD because V6 
users do not have access to the source code, rather all code is via SSA's 
"case" AS/Set.  SSA had announced that they dropping support for 405 CD 
effective end of May 2001.  This IBM V5 is due out beginning of May 2001.  
Now there are SEVERAL places that offer good quality tech support for BPCS 
405 CD when SSA's ends, so that is not a problem.  My thoughts are

a) Does SSA know about this? (I sent a general inquiry to SSA tech support to 
ask)
b) Can we expect a final REL 03 aggregate collection of BMRs at the end of 
405 CD that includes a fix for this nuance?

Assuming that we can not depend on such an expectation, there is a joint 
challenge of identifying inventorying what all our retrieve library list 
software is doing to figure out the impact & what needs fixing.

I think there is a PDM search & substitute command string that I need to 
learn, except I like to look at what exactly is happening in each instance.  
However PDM search might help in mapping out how RTVJOBA is used in our 800 
programs.

Subj:    Club Tech iSeries Programming Tips - 03.29.01
From:   ClubTechiSeriesPrgrmTips@list.as400network.com 
(ClubTechiSeriesPrgrmTips)

*********** Club Tech iSeries Programming Tips Newsletter ***********
An AS400 Network Publication              http://www.as400network.com
Home of NEWS/400 Magazine
Issue 41                                               March 29, 2001

Sponsored by Generic Software, Inc., at (800) 698-5669 or visit 
http://www.genericsoftware.com/html/save_output_queue.htm .

<snip>

THIS WEEK:
> APIs by Example: Read/Write an IFS File Line in RPG IV
> APIs by Example: Read an IFS File Line in Cobol
> Data Area Editor Utility
> Poor Man's Cross-Reference
> Maximum Libraries in *LIBL to Change from 25 to 250
< big snip >

* Make your RPG Programs happy! Download RPG-Alive...
  http://www.RPGAlive.com

<snip>

4. MAXIMUM LIBRARIES IN *LIBL TO CHANGE FROM 25 TO 250
The V5 release of OS/400, due out in May, changes the maximum number 
of libraries in the user part of a library list (*LIBL) from 25 to 
250. This will alleviate some problems that arose from the previous 
limitations, but it may cause other problems with your existing code.

The new versions of the RTVJOBA (Retrieve Job Attribute) command and 
the QUSRJOBI (Retrieve Job Information), QWCRTVCA (Retrieve Current 
Attributes), QUSRSPLA (Retrieve Spool File Attributes), and QWDRJOBD 
(Retrieve Job Description) APIs can now return more data than in 
previous releases. Be sure that any applications you have that use one 
of these interfaces provides enough room for 250 libraries in the 
return value.

When you increase the size of a return variable, you can still safely 
call V4R5 and earlier releases of these interfaces because there is no 
harm in providing more space than needed. Just be sure that your own 
application logic correctly handles however many library entries are 
returned.

For more information, see:
http://www.ibm.com/eserver/iseries/developer/os400/lib_list.html

Thanks to Paul Conte for the above item

<snip>

http://as400network.com/str/books/uniquebook2.cfm?NextBook=181 .

This newsletter is edited by Chuck Lundgren, 
mailto:clundgren@as400network.com .

FOR NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS, you can subscribe by joining the AS400 Network 
with a handy Web form at http://www.as400network.com/join/ .

IF YOU WANT TO SPONSOR a Club Tech iSeries Programming Tips 
Newsletter, please contact your AS400 Network sales manager. Click 
here for details: 
http://www.as400network.com/info/mediakit/Sales/Index.htm .
___________________________
Copyright 2001, NEWS/400
http://www.as400network.com
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