Re: Bar Code check and Mainfrane equivalents

Dear Dan,

One of the original IBM architectural decisions made for the mainframe (3270), 
that was carried over to other SNA platforms including the IBM Midrange 
environment, was a determination that block mode transmission would be selected 
for display and printer data transport. One of the primary reasons for choosing 
block mode was that display screens would be refreshed all at once even at 
remote sites with very slow line speeds. One of the rules that IBM adopted in 
conjunction with selecting block mode transport specified that only one data 
type was allowed within a block.

When IBM began developing the Advanced Function Printing concept (AFP), they 
ran into a small problem because they wanted to offer mixed data format support 
on a page basis using a data stream transport (block mode) that didn't allow 
mixed data types within a block. Their solution was to develop a method by 
which the AFP print driver (PSF) would produce a data stream (IPDS or AFPDS) 
that would build up a page by individual data type using the concept of 
physical and logical pages. 

If you look at an IPDS spool file on an AS/400, you will find that there is a 
header at the beginning of the file that describes the size of the physical 
page being used for printing. Individual pages within the spool file are 
developed by issuing a start page command followed by logical page definitions 
that place different data types onto certain areas of the physical page. When 
the page is complete an end page command is issued which causes the printer to 
print the page.

In your case, the field description for the Postnet bar code data in your 
program is turned into a logical page description by PSF/400. The intent of the 
bar code logical page description is to describe the area on the physical page 
that will enclose the actual bar code to be built by the target IPDS printer. 
The message you are receiving 041100 is telling you that the bar code to be 
built will not fit into the logical page area described to the printer by PSF 
(too big in the horizontal dimension) so the creation of the bar code was 
cancelled. 

You will probably need to increase the horizontal size of the field that holds 
the bar code data in your program. This change will in turn prompt PSF/400 to 
increase the size of the logical page, included in the spool file for the 
Postnet bar code data, so that the Zip+4 bar code can be successfully created 
by the target IPDS printer.

I've got the IPDS Handbooks for the 4028 and 3812/3816 printers that list the 
meanings for many of the IPDS sense codes that will be returned to the AS/400 
when an IPDS printer encounters a problem. I can send you the bar code sense 
codes list if you think it could be useful.

Best of luck!

/Paul
--
Paul Tykodi, Technical Director                 E-mail: pault@praim.com
Praim Inc.                                           Tel: 603-431-0606
140 Congress St., #2                                Fax: 603-436-6432
Portsmouth, NH  03801-4019

Date:   Thu, 6 May 1999 23:11:14 -0500 (CDT)
From:   Dan Rasch <drasch@mail.win.org>
Subject:        Bar Code check and Mainfrane equivalents

When recently asked to modify a print file with bar codes (the type the post 
office uses, called PostNet) - the print file had this error message:
WRITER PRINT1 found bar code check
device PRINT1 detected an IPDS bar code command that was not allowed or not 
supported by the printer.  The device error code is 041100.
The problem is not the printer, as another bar code job is working fine.  We 
tried to look at the printfile data using CPYSPLF but that is not allowed for 
printfiles with barcode data.  Does anyone know how to debug this problem?  One 
hint I can add is that the barcode was expanded from a 5 char zip code to 
ZIP+4.  I suspected it was stepping on another field within the line, so I 
removed all other fields and still had the error.
I am pursuing this mail group as opposed to a call to IBM because my current 
project site has a new manager with a Mainframe background.  He is too busy 
asking 3.38 million questions to get into a major debugging session with Big 
Blue.  I seem to remember a Mainframe to Midrange book some time back that gave 
equivalents to Mainframe acronyms (i.e. this manager asked me if logical files 
were an equivalent to 'access key paths' or something of that nature on the 
mainframe, and it seemed like an equivalent to me).  Such a reference book 
would give him a little independence, and me a chance to get work done 
(although they are not complaining about the hours I bill..... yet).
TIA...
Dan Rasch - because if the human species concentrated on the really important 
things in life, there would be a shortage of fishing poles!


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