Re: dspf exit pgm/WebFacing api. IBM should release this API into the wild.

On Tue, 2009-12-08 at 09:59 -0500, Steve Richter wrote:

On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

That has been available to some extent for some time Steve - it is
generally referred to as the WebFacing API and is used by many
software vendors. For whatever reason IBM decided to restrict the use
of the API to ISVs who meet certain criteria and conditions. My best
guess is that IBM want the ability to change the underlying API in the
future and don't want it escaping "into the wild" because then they
would be hogtied. Bruce Vining might be able to shed some more light
on this.

an API which allowed an exit program to intercept all input/output to
a display file would be extremely useful for shops to have access to.
Heck, let your imagination run wild and extend that capability to all
files, programs and procedure calls that a program makes. The
hardware side of IBM does world class work. So we have all the
processing power we need to enable hooked code to run quickly.

Well, we already have the virtual terminal APIs. However, each time I
have looked at them, I have decided that I could invent an easier
solution to my requirement, some solution which did not require me to
understand how to parse the 5250 data stream.

The iSeries Access screen APIs have worked for me. Having a second
platform in a solution brings costs of its own, of course, but they did
save me a lot of learning.

Cheers,
Terry.

Program hooks are useful for a few reasons. You can modify a program
without changing ( or even needing ) the source code. You can change
the behavior of a program or procedure in one application without
affecting what that same code does in other applications on the
system.

-Steve