RE: PHP update and directions

An AIX binary running in PASE can access native mode DB2? How does that

work? Are there APIs for that?

Yes - although I'm not sure if all the APIs are public yet.  There have been
a number of such "through the wall" APIs between PASE and i5/OS for some
time now.

IBM worked with zend to introduce a number of additional APIs to make all
this work.  It is one of the reasons why it is limited to V5R4 at present.
When zend release it on V5R3 in 2007 it is possible that it will not include
some of the direct access APIs - still waiting to hear what IBM are going to
do about that side of things.

From my discussions with zend they like the platform - there are a lot of

similarities between the communities.  A focus on getting the job done
rather than architectural purity being one of them.

I think IBM "encouraged" them just as they have with many other vendors.
Providing new APIs, access to developers for questions, loaner systems, etc.
Nothing unusual that I've heard of.

I think that is the way you call RPG from PHP, via an SQL procedure.

It is _a_ way - not _the_ way.

The straight call is like this:

$ret = i5_program_call($pgm, $parmIn, $parmOut);

Prior to this you have to "open" the program connection (and close it later)
- but the call itself is straightforward.

Similarly there are native I/O calls as well as native (i.e. non-ODBC)
database functions.

$file = i5_open("PHPLIB/USERS", I5_OPEN_READ);
...
$rec = i5_fetch_row($file, I5_READ_FIRST);
...
$rec = i5_fetch_assoc($file, I5_READ_LAST);

It's all in the documentation.

Jon Paris
Partner400

www.Partner400.com