Re: Screen Scraping and Macro's

Jon S wrote:

I need to be able to possibly pick data up from a file, and then run it through some screens programmatically and then perhaps pull some stuff off and process it.

There are two basic ways to do this in RPG. The Virtual Terminal APIs and Sockets.

With the VT APIs, you tell the system that you are a *VRT 5250 terminal. Your RPG program can then speak the 5250 protocol directly with the system, and as far as the system is concerned, your program is a 5250 terminal. You can read the screens, send back input data, etc. Everything that a user can do, plus more.

The down side to this approach is that you have to grok the 5250 protocol -- which is not for the feint-of-heart!


Sockets might be easier. The i5/OS TELNET server supports vt100 emulation as well as 5250. If you were to write a TN5250 client in RPG (using a TCP socket) then you'd essentially have to write the same code that you would with the VT APIs since 95% of your code will still be related to handling the 5250 protocol.

However, the fact that it supports the vt100 protocol makes things simpler. Vt100 is a much simpler protocol to code (albeit, it doesn't have as many features as 5250).

Albert York's put out a free utility called TNAPI many years ago that's designed for exactly what you're doing. Under the covers, he uses sockets and the VT100 protocol, but you don't have to worry about that if you use his software because he's done it for you. You'll find his utility at the following link (though I have no idea if it's the latest version):
http://www.ediconsulting.com/EDIdownloads.htm