Copy data from RPG ILE program to Windows Clipboard

I had a similar app that had to paste data into and out from an excel 
spreadsheet, basically pasting scraping the summary screen of an AS400 app for 
copying onto the clipboard.  (Obviously, there was some Excel VBA macro 
programming accompanying this.)

I also had the web screen copied into the AS400 screen into hidden fields.  
The emulation package we were using at the time was Rally for AS400, running 
on WIN31 (back in 1996).

Using Excel, on the summary screen on the AS400: customer names and alpha 
fields that might contain commas were surrounded by quotes ... note that 
blanks on the web can be a pain, and you might want to convert your blanks to 
20% before pasting ... I separated all my fields, alpha and numeric with 
commas ... I had the users checkbox on a feature in the emulator to insert a 
tab between paste fields.

Also, watch for wrapping of text fields around column 80 - they are 
problematic. I avoided them entirely, splitting it into two fields.

Also, if pasting into the AS400, hiding your input fields so users paste into 
a blank screen makes it seem like magic to them, and it stops a lot of stupid 
questions from them too "why does my data look so strange", "I tabbed a few 
fields into the screen.  Will that make a difference?"  A command key allowed 
me to debug the paste screen by hiding / unhiding the input fields on the 
AS400 screen.  The user just saw "Press CTRL + V to paste your Excel data".

If you need to massage the data in between the AS400 and IE, what I would 
probably do is start Excel within the process and use the cells in a 
spreadsheet and VBA macro code to merge cells and split cells if necessary. 
I don't think IE has a VB-like macro language.  If there is a mcaro language, 
or some plugin, please let me know.  I sure could use one if there is.

===============================================
"Tim Chrysler" <tim_chrysler@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
05/23/2003 12:09 PM
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Copy data from RPG ILE program to Windows Clipboard

I have an application that needs to pass data to a web application developed 
by a third party. They provide no "hooks" into their app, so I would like
to copy the required data from the AS/400 to the Windows clipboard so the user 
...

............... John Voris ...............
         IBM Certified Specialist,
   iSeries Technical Solutions Designer
         mailto:jvoris@xxxxxxxxxxx
                610 873-0780