Help needed with RPG prototypes and POI

["John King" <jking@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello, all:

I need to create Excel workbooks in batch from RPG, and am just *this* far
away from getting Geert Van Landeghem's tutorial on calling POI methods in
RPG running. Two items have me completely stumped, though. Can someone
please point me in the correct direction? See
http://www.jasservices.com/articles/as400/001_genexcel.htm.

1) Using the example RPG at the bottom of his page, my compiler spits-up on
the "writeWB(wb:outFile);" statement, issuing a "*RNF7030 The name or
indicator WRITEWB is not defined." error message. If I understand correctly
(and that is a big leap) it appears that "writeWB" is actually a Java method
and must be prototyped for RPG to call it. It seems like
"writeWB(wb:outFile);" has two parms, so I prepared the following PR. Now
the compiler complains about "*RNF5406 The call passed fewer parameters than
the prototype indicates are required." What am I misunderstanding about Java
prototypes?

 * // WorkBook.write()
D writeWB         PR                  EXTPROC(*JAVA
D                                     :'org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel-
D                                     .HSSFWorkbook'
D                                     :'write')
D parm                            O   CLASS(*JAVA
D                                     :'org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel-
D                                     .HSSFWorkbook')
D parm                            O   CLASS(*JAVA
D                                     :'java.io.FileOutputStream')

2) The program actually runs if all the POI-related lines are commented out.
An empty "foo.xls" file is created in the output directory so I know the
java.lang.* and java.io.* functions work, but I receive the following
runtime error when the program is run with the "wb = createWB()"
uncommented.
"Java exception "java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:                         "
"org/apache/commons/logging/LogFactory" when calling method "<init>" with"
"signature "()V" in class "org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook".  "

The iSeries has JDK1.3 and runs V5R1 with recent PTFs. *SYS CLASSPATH is set
to ".:/JavaUtil/POI/POI.jar", and I can see that exact item (spelling and
caps are correct) is present when I peek into POI.jar with WinZip. Actually,
I receive the same runtime message when the CLASSPATH is "Foo" or *NONE, so
it appears that RPG is ignoring the CLASSPATH entirely. Since the JVM is
being started inside of RPG, is there some parameter that controls where RPG
resolves the CLASSPATH? Does anyone know of a way (example code would be
greatly appreciated) to see what the CLASSPATH is during debug? Is there
anything suspicious about the "signature ()" statement? Why do I have so
many questions?

Many thanks
JK