RE: .Net C# and VB Running Natively with Mono for i

Agreed. PASE is the go-to for integrating outside technologies.

The lack of Db2 access seems like a major hurdle to me. Does Mono on other platforms support DB access?



-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Schoen via MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2018 7:59 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Richard Schoen <Richard.Schoen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: .Net C# and VB Running Natively with Mono for i

Not quite sure what Alex meant, but it's definitely not an ILE native port. That's not really realistic.

It runs in PASE which is to be expected on IBMi.

I was quite amazed when I talked to the author and he told me I could simply compile in Visual Studio and move the objects to the IFS and they would run. Whaaat..... ?

Sure enough I grabbed the latest already compiled incantation of the XMLSERVICE DLL I created from Nuget, created a little console application (think CL program) and it all runs perfectly on i.

So it does actually work with some existing compiled .Net EXE and DLL files and can also compile VB and C# to .Net 4.7.1. Limits to be discovered I'm sure.

The MONO wrapper CL process I created executes a .Net console application and can capture the stdout information and pipeline it to the IFS, to an outfile, to a joblog or to a print file so any IBMi program can call a .Net app in PASE and get the output and use it. (Think similar to sending back CPF message data from a CL or RPG app).

If you are a .Net developer like I am, I just say: "WOW, the possibilities are endless with the existing .Net code and utilities that should be able to run or eventually run on IBMi with this".

I plan to push the envelope on what's currently working and see what we can come up with.

There are definitely still some things missing like I don't think the .Net framework database stuff works, however the bits that XML service needs do work (http/https/DataSet/DataTables/JSON/XML processing).

I plan to document the valid use cases where .Net code can benefit the developers on IBMi and provide some examples.

Regards,
Richard Schoen
Director of Document Management
e. richard.schoen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
p. 952.486.6802
w. helpsystems.com