Nope! Open Access has nothing to do with the 5250 data stream.
You're right that you still use the RPG op-codes, but no 5250 data
stream is generated.
Basically, tools that operate from the 5250 data stream (such as HATS,
and a great many other tools, like our company's tool named Genie, a
breed of tools known by some as "screen scrapers") are given a screen.
A 80x24 (or 132x27) block of text. That's all they get... from that
grid of characters, they have to figure out which parts of the screen
are different things (fields, function key labels, subfiles, etc) all by
detecting the sorts of strings that would typically make up those things.
How does it know if there's really a subfile on the screen, or if your
data just appears to be in columns? It doesn't. It can only guess.
How does it know what the field names are of the fields on the screen?
It doesn't... and it can't.
Suppose you want to create a grid (more web-like replacement for a
subfile) that has 50 rows? Since a screen-scraper communicates by
outputting a 132x27 screen, and then interpreting it on the fly, there's
no way. Since a subfile can't have 50 rows, there's no way you can do
it in a screen scraper.
Open Access does not suffer any of those limitations. Open Access is
called directly when you do an EXFMT (or any other file opcode) and it
gives you the record buffer, not the image of the screen, with which to
communicate. So it now knows the actual field names, sizes, etc. It
does not have the limits of the 5250 screen, because there is no 5250
screen. You can design a screen with 50 rows on a subfile, no problem.
You can do other things that 5250 can't do, like drag and drop for
instance... it's no problem. Fields in the record can be used to
communicate where data is dragged to/from -- they aren't limited to only
what's available in the 5250 environment.
If you're interested in learning more about this, I'd be glad to give
you a demonstration.... Like Brian said, check out our web site, sign
up for a demo or a free trial, we'll show you what it can do...
http://www.profoundlogic.com
On 10/7/2013 2:47 PM, BRoche@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Doesn't RPGOA just intercept the 5250 data stream, not eliminate it. you
still use the same opcodes, just override what processes them. I may be
mistaken about how it works under the covers.
midrange.com
