Re: BPCS beginner. -- BPCS-L

> Thanks very much,  in fact I'm a programmer on as/400 and new to BPCS, so I
> want to find more information about it such as database description and so
on.
>  I guess I have to read all the manuals.
>
>  Thanks! I will follow your advice.

Since you are a programmer, you can short circuit the learning path by:
1. WRKOBJ BPCSDOC to see what library it is in.
2. Find the Member that is SSALOG00 & study that.

This SSA document explains the BPCS naming conventions & basically gives you
a road map to the structure.  It is not a good road map, but it is better
than not knowing that this exists.

There are also some documents that came on PC Diskette with each upgrade &
conversion & installation of BPCS versions.  Many of the documents are
confusing instructions to handle that effort, but within them you ought to be
able to get at a directory of the BPCS files & how they are organized.

If you not able to get at this, from your DSPLIB library list for BPCS users
you ought to be able to see that 99% of the files are in one library, so you
can do a DSPOBJD to *OUTFILE then Query/400 reference report listing BPCS
physical files.

In my post answering the RCM audit trail question I mentioned
"RUNQRY *N ITH then F4 & on the bottom make that *YES"
You can do this with any BPCS file if you have command line access.
This basically says "use Query/400 capabilities" against the file specified,
without having any *QRYDFN actually setup for it, although you don't get to
use all Query/400 capabilities, I find it useful to initially do enter
without selection, look at patterns ... field # 13 I want to select only
those with certain criteria, then I F12 to the selection screen, cursor to
bottom 1/2, scroll to get name of field # 13 & I am in business.

There will be a library that is all the source code.  This varies by version.
BPCS405CDS (the S is for Source) is for our version, but every version is
different.

Source code is in this library, which you will have to figure out for your
version, by source language.

Q___SRC ... fill in the blank with RPG DDS CL PNL (help written in UIM) etc.
BPCS source is developed by SSA in AS/Set & depending on what version you are
in, you may not have access to the actual source code.  But don't feel bad.
My management decided not to let me have access to AS/Set, so I am faced with
modifications to a program that has approx 1,000 pages when compile listed &
it calls 10 other programs of similar size, and every other line refers to a
literal in a message file.

Ask if your site has some kind of programming standards to cope with future
merger of BPCS upgrades & your modifications ... I have found PDM-54
invaluable in identifying what SSA changed vs. what we changed, but that is
only practical when we store the original source to both paths of
modification.

The UPI manuals are great for giving someone the big picture of some
application, how all the pieces fit together, what's essential & what's
cosmetic, but to get an understanding of what all those fields represent &
how they are used, on a file by file basis, you really need the
www.dssolutionsinc.com manual.

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