Re: Has anyone done any processing with OA and WORKSTN device types?

Hi Folks,

From April.

Tom
I agree with Mark here - each of the 3 primary vendors working with
WORKSTN files use very different approaches - and I might expect
connections to be a little slow at first, in any case - but the
vendor (I know which one) is the only one that can really help you.
It raises an interesting aspect to Open Access - support and
troubleshooting is going to be rather different, I suspect! It
ain't general-purpose RPG support anymore - it's that plus the one
who wrote the handler.

Steven
And I noticed this. They (the vendors, I have listened to the 3)
like to use the word non-proprietary, without pointing out that the
proprietary nature of the handler drives their system.

There's a reason for this. You cannot handle a subfile through RPG OA without essentially reverse engineering the entire workstation gateway subfile handling software. I know, I've done it. My PSC iQ product does what RPG OA does for WORKSTN files, except I had to do it by modifying the RPG source code (that's the only option I had ten years ago).

Subfiles are hard enough, but where I ran into problems was nested programs. Say one program filled a subfile, then you took an option to call another program, and it in turn called a subfile. Then you hit F12 to back out, and did a READC in the first program. Who kept all that information? In order to use RPG OA to do that, you'll have to have your own subfile handling logic in your handler code. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

Joe