Re: PROBLEM WITH V5R3 -- Workaround for Escape Messages

Our WinSpool/400 Report Download PC software is FTP based and we noticed 
the CPF9898 problem during initial V5R3 testing. 

We kept waiting for the Cumulatiive V5R3 PTF's to resolve this issue, but 
they never did. 

We even tried creating a bunch of different user messages and they didn't 
work either. 

>From what we could tell IBM internally changed the message that gets 
returned when an escape message is issued in an FTP session.  This was 
either a mistake or an attempt to make the remote command support more 
secure through the FTP server by not allowing the result text of an escape 
message to be returned. 

We were pretty sure we were going to have to rewrite our FTP API library 
on the PC. 

Here's how we resolved the issue.  Don't ask me why this works, but it 
does:

ADDMSGD    MSGID(CPFFFFF) MSGF(QSYS/QCPFMSG) MSG('&1') SEV(30) + 
               FMT((*CHAR 45)) DMPLST(*NONE) 

Now when you need to issue an escape message, send one to CPFFFFF and the 
first 45 bytes get returned. 

We couldn't get any more than 45 bytes to return, but for our report 
download process we don't need more than 45 bytes returned. 

Note: IBM could use message CPFFFFF in a future OS/400 (or whatever it 
will be called after i5/OS) release, but for now this message ID was not 
being used by IBM. 

Hope this helps. 

Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc. 
"Your Complete iSeries and PC Solution Provider"
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
Tel: (952) 898-3038
Fax: (952) 898-1781
Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once again,

1. The program performs exactly as intended when run from a command line
in a terminal session.

2. It returns a message indicating that it was TRYING to send a CPF9898 as
an escape message, but couldn't, when run from an FTP session.

3. It doesn't use unsupported or restricted interfaces.

--
JHHL