RE: Storing Numeric Values in the Database

Barbara,

Beautiful, just add a HANDLER keyword to the file spec and recompile to get dynamic type conversion on the RPG I/O. Is there any public description of the APIs provided to the handler code by RPG so I could get a deeper understanding? Has anyone written a handler like that?

Thanks,
Paul Morgan

Principal Programmer Analyst
IT Supply Chain/Replenishment

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Barbara Morris
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2011 7:25 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Storing Numeric Values in the Database

On 2011/9/2 9:24 PM, Morgan, Paul wrote:

... I wish to code in RPG V using external database tables (not
files). No table formats embedded in the compiled code. Data
definition reinterpreted at run time. If you can do it with embedded
SQL why not also with the base RPG IV language? Maybe some set based
RPG external table opcodes. Maybe a simple change to a file spec
from external file to external table might be all the code change
required. Just one last recompile to RPG Nirvana.

Hmmm, does the new SPECIAL file spec do that?

Yes, I think you could do something like that with an Open Access file.
The RPG program would still be hard-wired to a particular layout of the
record format, but the OA handler could map that to the fields in the
actual record format, and it could give an error if a field required by
the program no longer exists, or if it changed in a way that the handler
couldn't handle.