Re: OS400/Unix authority settings

Hi Vern,

Another reason not to call the QShell programs directly (I've made that
mistake before, fortunately with no ill results) - is that the status is
not returned when you do that. Only the STRQSH/QSH command does that.

This isn't quite accurate. There is a way to get the status with API calls. But it's not 100% reliable, and isn't supported by IBM. (Like everything related to this way of doing it.)

Scott has mentioned this before, and I don't remember - I think we CAN
write our own utilities for QShell - they just have to use the C/C++
interface, where what comes in is an array of char* following the number
of items in that array. Not that I've tried this yet - oh yeah, you'd
have to add a symbolic link into the same place where QShell puts them
in the IFS.

You don't have to use a C interface (but it's easier.) I've written several QShell utilities in RPG, and they work fine.

In fact, the current beta version of HTTPAPI has a QShell interface, written in RPG. Useful if you want to use QShell pipes with it. For example:

httpapi post --upload /tmp/mystuff.dat \
--download=- https://x.y.com | grep 'success'

This sends a file, then checks to see if the response has the word 'success'. (Shrug) So far I've only found it useful for debugging web apps, but it's QShell written entirely in RPG.

You can, of course, write QShell utilities in a number of languages besides C/C++. Including Java, Perl, PHP, Lua (I'm told), or Qshell's own scripting language.