Re: Getting started with RPG-OA -- RPG400-L

Dirk

I also suggest that OAR (another way to say RPG-OA) is not what you want to use. You would be much better off for a start-up simple project to use CGIDEV2 from www.easy400.net - this is free (I think, now) and hides a lot of the HTML issues that are part of writing to a browser.

I also suggest looking at the website Charles gave, for Profound UI - they have worked out what is needed to make things work very like what happens on green screens - you don't REALLY want to write something that processes the 5250 data stream yourself, do you? With everything it does? It's not so bad to push data out, but doing and EXFMT, well, I leave it to them and the others who have done this for years.

I do recommend looking at the Open Access manual - it's very much details of data structures and all, but it may help some. It can be seen at http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v7r1m0/topic/books/rzasm.pdf

Jon Paris has written several articles on writing an OAR handler - and some of it is very easy to do - however, what you want is more than just publishing a report to some external device.

With CGIDEV2, you will still need to know a bit about HTML - if you've never written HTML, I suggest www.w3schools.com or getting a beginning book at www.sitepoint.com.

And there are several examples at easy400.net, as I recall.

HTH
Vern

On 2/12/2014 9:58 AM, Charles Wilt wrote:

I think you have a basic misunderstand of what RPG-OA is...

RPG-OA is an "enabling" technology. In other words, it doesn't do anything
in and of itself. IBM basically just surfaced an existing interface
between RPG and the OS. (Sorry Barbara if I'm short changing the work you
did :) )

For your proposed task, RPG-CGI would be a quicker, easier solution.
Requiring little knowledge beside ILE RPG and basic HTML.

Now if you have an unmentioned requirement to not re-write the original
(though you'd have to be willing to change/add a couple lines and possibly
keep two separate *PGM objects) and to only use RPG RLA op-codes instead of
ILE RPG Procedures...

Well then RPG-OA can enable that, but you'd need to build or buy a handler.
The handler would take care of converting the RPG RLA op-code into what
the browser needs. Obviously, building such a handler is not for the faint
of heart and while the original program doesn't need ILE RPG, the handler
surely would. Nor could you build it with out a detailed understanding the
web technologies you intend to use.

It would probably be much more cost effective to buy such a handler, a good
choice in IMHO:
http://www.profoundui.com/

You might be interested in the following webinar happening today at 1:30EST
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/207407002

HTH,
Charles

On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 10:31 AM, <Dirk.Marien@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm having a look at RPG open Access, and therefore I'd like some
input/ideas ... .

I have a - very simple - program in RPG. It reads a file, shows two values
of the file on a display file and updates the file with the values... .

Now, I'd like to show the two values on a browser, have the user
input/change the values and update them in the file.

I would like to do this by using RPG open access ? Can anyone tell me how
to do this (or how to start with it) ? A - very simple example to start
with - would be great .. .

Kr,
Dirk.

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