Re: "XML Toolkit for iSeries": Free or not? (was RE: RPG XML interface (was RE: RPG III to get a facelift ...))

Hi all,
 
We had the XML Toolkit loaded a few weeks ago and I can confirm the
following:
 
1) It is shipped separately. It is an orderable LPO. IBM will ship the CD to
you when you order it.
2) The cost is dependant upon the machine you're running. For example, we
had to pay approx $250 to load it onto our development machine. For our
larger production machines it was free.
 
FWIW, my comments on this product are below:
 
1) The SAX parser is MUCH faster than the java equivalent I used to use.
(when only checking for well-formedness) It is still slow(ish) when
validating against a XSD.
2) If you're experienced in using SAX or DOM parsers it's pretty easy to use
- but the docs are truly awful.
3) There are typos in the copy source provided for the procedures. There's
even a RPG prototype for a getter procedure that has no return type! I had
to go through the C includes to compare the C version with the RPG version
and code the appropriate return type in the RPG prototype.
4) It's a real shame that you can't use XSLT within this product. For the
moment you can use XSD schemas and DTDs for validation, but no transforms.
So we have Xerces but not Xalan. It was ALMOST a complete product.
 
We use this product to parse XML sent to our apache web server via the HTTP
POST method. This is done within a RPG CGI program - and it's REALLY, REALLY
fast. I was astounded. We have written a service program that wraps the
toolkit. This has exported procedures that affords the RPG programmer the
ability to use VERY SIMPLE parsing techniques (either by passing a fully
qualified file path, or a pointer + length), or more complex parsing as
required. I've got to say that the product is really nice, it's just a shame
that the supporting docs are so poor. I think the doc writers must have
written javadocs in a previous life. :-)
 
My favourite is the ability to use call-back procedures. I've used them in
RPG when registering a call-back procedure to be called by the runtime prior
to the end of an activation group. I just hadn't thought of using them in
normal RPG programming. All we need now is a form of persistent *NEW, or
variable NAMED, activation groups and we've almost got o-RPG. <grin/>
  
Cheers
 
Larry
 
<snip> 
Dan,

The XML Toolkit V5R1 was charged for $250, IIRC. It was the first OS release

with the toolkit, based on the last alpahworks XML server programme.

Do not know of this is still the case, or the price tag has been removed
with 
the later releases.

Regards,
Carel Teijgeler
</snip>