Re: monitor for the existence of a file on the IFS

[Scott Klement <klemscot@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 9 May 2002, Richard B Baird wrote:
>
> I'm looking for a way to have an NEP batch job periodically (say, every 5
> min or so) monitor for the existence of a file (any file, any name) in a
> specific folder on the IFS.
>
> what I want to do is to monitor for a situation - a user moves/copies a
> file into a folder on the ifs - and have that action start a process where
> the as/400 uploads the file, deletes it off the ifs and processes the file.

For that, you'll need to know more than just the "existance" of the file,
you'll also want to make sure that the previous job is done writing the
file.

i.e. you don't want to grab it, process it, and delete it if the user is
still adding data to the file.


> most if this stuff is pretty basic, but the piece i'm clueless about is how
> an rpg program (or clp, or whatever) can go looking for files in the IFS,
> without knowing the name.  The file could be named anything, but then I
> will need to determine that name so I can upload it to the 400 (via
> cpyfrmimpf).

The opendir(), readdir() APIs allow you to open up a directory name
and read through a list of files in that directory.   I know I've written
samples of this and posted it to the lists before...

go to:
       http://archive.midrange.com

and search the MIDRANGE-L and RPG400-L lists for opendir() and readdir().

Then, take a look at the fcntl() API, which allows you to get & set
locking info for a file.  You'll need that to make sure that other jobs
are finished with the file.