Re: Trying to get output from System.out.

----------
    I contacted Mark off-list because it wasn't clear to me if Colin's
response resolved things and I didn't want to clutter the list with just an
inquiry.  Mark's response is below and I will refer to it later on.
----------


    I will just briefly state my opinion that the biggest problem is calling
Java apps from RPG.  It seems cool, but there are lots of issues, and
performance/memory becomes a real headache with multiple users.  We never
have these problems because we just don't do it.  JNI has its place, but
normally asynchronous processing is the answer.  We use messaging due to
several benefits; others do the same with data queues.

    BTW, my conclusions are educated guesses.  We don't do things this way,
so it has zero educational value for me, and as a business owner I don't get
to eat unless I bill, so there's no incentive to go through testing.  With
that said,

    First, standard IFS files are in ASCII.  I think your initial problem is
that EBCDIC is getting loaded into the file.  From what I can tell about
QIBM_USE_DESCRIPTOR_STDIO, while most of the documentation deals with PASE
and C code, I think the RPG programs job log and/or messages are getting put
to the IFS file as stdout and stderr.  I may be wrong, but it fits your
description.  So, the first thing I would try is ditching that environment
variable.  See

File systems

<
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/iseries/v5r2/ic2924/index.htm?info/rzalf/rzalffilesystems.htm
>

for *some* information.

    Next, I wouldn't use SystemDefault.properties.  That could get to be a
maintenance headache one way or another.  In addition, I suspect that it
would cause previous data to be overwritten, although I'm not 100% certain
of that - depends on how the default out/err is opened.

    Colin's code ( which includes buffering ) should work fine.  The general
basic form is:

        // set out, err
       System.setErr(
          new PrintStream(
             new FileOutputStream(
               "/myDir/myLog.log", true ) ) );

       System.setOut(
          new PrintStream(
             new FileOutputStream(
               "/myDir/myLog.log", true ) ) );

    Two things about your code below:  You never set System.out or
System.err, and, opening and closing files is expensive.  For this purpose,
you should only do it once per program.  Otherwise, there's nothing that
strikes me as obviously wrong, although you don't need

        fs.close();

after

        ps.close();

    Maybe there's no text associated with getMessage() for the error?  Try
writing another string as well.  HTH,


                                                         Joe Sam

Joe Sam Shirah -        http://www.conceptgo.com
conceptGO       -        Consulting/Development/Outsourcing
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: <MWalter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Joe Sam Shirah" <jshirah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 2:15 PM
Subject: Re: Trying to get output from System.out.


> It makes sense, but I can't get it to work. Here's what I've done playing
> with this:
>
> public class WorkbookObject {
>
>             public HSSFWorkbook getWorkbookHandle (String pathToFile)
>       {
>
>             try {
>                   FileInputStream fs = new FileInputStream(pathToFile);
>                   POIFSFileSystem pfs = new POIFSFileSystem(fs);
>                   HSSFWorkbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook(pfs);
>                   fs.close();
>                   String tempString = "This Worked";
>                   writeErrorLog(tempString);
>                   return wb;
>
>             }
>             catch (Exception e){
>                   writeErrorLog(e.getMessage());
>                   return null;
>             }
>       }
>
>       private void writeErrorLog (String error)
>       {
>             try {
>                         String errorFileString = "/javalog/myErrors.log";
>                         FileOutputStream fs = new
> FileOutputStream(errorFileString,true);
>                         PrintStream ps = new PrintStream(fs);
>                         ps.println(error);
>                         ps.close();
>                         fs.close();
>                         }
>                         catch (Exception ioe){
>
>                         }
>       }
> }
>
>
> I get nothing in myErrors.log
>
> Obviously I'm a Java Rookie. Again this is being called from RPG.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark
>
> Mark D. Walter
> Senior Programmer/Analyst
> CCX, Inc.
> mwalter@xxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.ccxinc.com
>