Re: IBM i file transfer rant

[DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John,
	Have you suggested to IBM that an option to 'take all the defaults' 
would be a great option? Perhaps call it 'Quick excel upload' or some such?
	Have you opened a PMR on this issue?
	Anyone who reads this list will know that I love to throw down a good 
rant on IBM (and others, they just don't get on here) but if you've not 
attempted to work with IBM to enhance or correct the error then the rant 
loses a lot of steam. It's not like this product has 20 years under it's 
belt at this point.

        - Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 11/10/2017 6:19 AM, john erps wrote:
> <rant>
>
> I'm trying to use the ACS IBM i file transfer utility to upload an excel
> file to a *FILE.
>
> This shouldn't be too difficult.
> It's not possible to simply point to an excel sheet, specify the name of
> the *FILE and just let the tool figure out the defaults (convention over
> configuration).
> But no, i have to use the wizard to generate some .fdfx file, clicking
> "next" each time and accepting the defaults which are ok (why can't the
> utility do this automatically).
> Then, after creating the .fdfx, i can upload the excel file (well that's
> the idea).
> However, then i get an error that a numeric column of the *FILE created by
> the wizard does not correspond to an excel column which is now determined
> to be CHAR.
> However, the file was created by the wizard which determined earlier that
> the column is numeric.
> But when uploading the column is suddenly determined to be CHAR.
>
> So i give up on this piece of ...  IBM unhelpful utility.
> And resort to save to CVS and ftp and CPYFRMIMPF.
> Why is this simple task (uploading an excel to a database table) so
> problematic?
>
> Really a wonder that IBM i still exists ( or IBM ).
>
> I bet that uploading excel to SQL server (or Oracle or any other) is just
> point and click, accepting the defaults.
>
> </rant>