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  1.  Home
  2. WEB400
  3. May 2015

Re: Does the eRPG SDK template system support JSON?

Henrik - Yes - I haven't done JSON so was giving a very simple example.
I don't know if the ENCODE procedure is in the COBOL version of CGIDEV2, and I don't know if it handles JSON's special characters.
Now if you are referring to the curly and square brackets, they would be handled using my suggestion, as to their JSON use - if embedded in a value or string, probably have to be encoded somehow - again, I have not done this, so can't speak to what that would be.
Jon has mentioned other ways - probably better to use than this, but the concept is still an important one - CGIDEV2 (and you extension of it) can use sections that small - in a web page, a section can be a cell in a table - it doesn't need to be the entire row of a table.
The comparison to DSPFs may lead a person to think in terms of an entire row - so I just want to counter that thought a little. 

Cheers
Vern

On 5/13/2015 8:35 AM, Henrik Rützou wrote:

Vernon

and you miss the JSON encoding of special characters but of couse
what does it matter ;-)

On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 3:23 PM, Vernon Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


As to building JSON (or any other kind of structure) - It should be easy
enough to have a few JSON sections, 1 that would have 2 variables

<!-- $JSONBegin$ -->
{

<!-- $JSONElement$ -->
"<!-- %string% -->": "<!-- %value% -->"

<!-- $JSONEnd$ -->
}

Having just looked at JSON details, that is simplistic but extensible, I
think.

Basic idea is, a CGIDEV2 section can be very small - basically I see it as
something repeatable.

HTH
Vern


On 5/13/2015 2:11 AM, Kevin Turner wrote:


Yes, apart from the fact that cgicbldev2 has no built in JSON support as
such - you would have to roll your own. Building JSON strings for output is
not difficult - it is parsing inbound JSON strings that is tricky.

Sent from my iPad

  On 13 May 2015, at 06:28, Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The comments in this thread lead me to think that CGICBLDEV2 would
better help us leverage our existing COBOL skills because CGICBLDEV2 is
written in COBOL, eliminating some of the problems of trying to use CGI
packages written in RPG.

Am I mistaken in this view?

Thanks,
Kelly


-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jon Paris
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 3:14 PM
To: Web400@Midrange. Web400
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Does the eRPG SDK template system support JSON?

For the most part Brad COBOL can do anything that RPG can - but it is
more work.

Imagine RPG in the "bad old days" without Protos and the CONST keyword.

In RPG by using that one facility I can define a field as 60 long and
pass a literal, a 20 char field, a varying field, a function, etc. etc.

In COBOL I would have to determine that I did indexed need an X(60) -
set up a temporary one, and then move the value I wanted into it before
passing the parm.

Similarly COBOL has no Options(*String) so any C-type function that
requires passing a pointer to a null terminated string is a pain in the .

And on and on.

When I first had to go back and do this stuff "by hand" it may me
appreciate just how much work the RPG compiler was doing for me.

The COBOL syntax is also rather verbose since without the protos you
need to specify the way in which the parm is passed on each call for each
parm.



Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

  On May 11, 2015, at 8:58 PM, Bradley Stone <bvstone@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I wondered the same thing, Henrick.

I haven't done COBOL since the 90s but a search shows this answer from
Bruce Vinning:

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/calling-rpg-proc-f
rom-cobol-ile/

I guess I just assumed that with ILE things worked as ILE... If CONST
ruins that relationship maybe it should be more "publicized".  :)  I
plan too look further into this issue that's for sure as it's the
first I've heard of it.

Brad
www.bvstools.com

  On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 2:03 AM, Henrik Rützou <hr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

I know nothing about COBOL interface to RPG service programs, what is
the difference (besides the /copybook) ?

On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 5:04 AM, Kelly Cookson
<KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

  Thanks Jon. There are a number of tools for mobile development on

the IBM i.

However, our shop has decided to develop mobile client interfaces
using responsive web sites and hybrid apps (Cordorva/PhoneGap). This
is because all of our current mobile developers are coming from a
background of Microsoft .NET web development. Our shop has spent
years developing websites that connect to the IBM i using web
services written in .NET and using the .NET Data Provider.

For our IBM i COBOL developers (including myself) to become web and


mobile


developers, we will have to use HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, AJAX, JSON
and Cordova/PhoneGap to develop client interfaces. I was hoping to
use


Node.JS


on the IBM i to give our COBOL developers a path to web services
without having to learn .NET. Node.JS isn't going to work for us at
this time.


But


we can: (a) use our shop's standard technologies to develop web and


mobile


client interfaces, and (b) hook up the client interfaces to web
services developed with COBOL CGI programs. This gets our IBM i
COBOL developers into web and mobile development without having to
learn .NET, and it leverages our existing expertise in COBOL.

I have designed an architecture for CGI programming on the IBM i
that conforms to REST architectural constraints as described in
Fielding's dissertation. I am now gathering information on tools
available to help


us


with the COBOL CGI programming. Next step, proof of concepts...

Thanks,
Kelly


-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jon
Paris
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2015 9:36 PM
To: Web400@Midrange. Web400
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Does the eRPG SDK template system support JSON?

For Mobile development with COBOL you should really take a look at


Lansa's


LongRange http://www.longrangemobile.com

I know that works pretty well with COBOL because I helped translate
a few of the RPG examples into COBOL.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

  On May 10, 2015, at 8:00 PM, Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

  I will look for the template system in CGICBLDEV2 when I get it
installed and start playing around with it.


I literally just started looking at CGI tools. I recently learned
that our shop will not be adopting Node.JS on the IBM i at any time
in the foreseeable future. Kind of a bummer. But the same reasons
for not adopting Node.JS make CGI using COBOL programs an
attractive alternative. (Every shop is different, and I'm sure
Node.JS will work wonderfully for a lot of shops. It's just not a
good fit for us at this time.)

I'm still committed to helping our IBM i COBOL developers become
web and mobile developers as well. ;-)

Thanks,
Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jon
Paris
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2015 7:30 PM
To: Web400@Midrange. Web400
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Does the eRPG SDK template system support JSON?

CGICBLDEV2 uses a template system too Kelly.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

  On May 10, 2015, at 12:55 PM, Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

  Thanks Jon. I am looking at CGICBLDEV2 as well. And I'm looking at
other solutions such as the CGI interface to XMLSERVICE and iWebSrv.
The thing I like about eRPG SDK is the use of a template system to
format data for return to the client. This seems to me a potentially

intuitive way for developers who only do COBOL and DDS to deal with
returning JSON data. Still, I am also looking at other options for
JSON with COBOL (YAJL, PowerEXT, Redvers COBOL JSPN Interface).


The client interfaces we develop will using jQuery AJAX to make

GET


and

POST requests, and they will be expecting data formatted in JSON as
the response. By keep the contract between the client and the web
service uniform (AJAX GET and POST requests, JSON responses) we can
develop


client


interfaces that can easily switch between IBM i back ends and
Windows


back


ends. We just need to point the client to a new URL to switch back
ends.
This is one of the benefits of the uniform interface constraint of


RESTful


architecture.


Thanks,

Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jon
Paris
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2015 10:23 AM
To: Web400@Midrange. Web400
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Does the eRPG SDK template system support
JSON?

Kelly,

You might want to also look at the COBOL interfaces for CGIDEV2 (


http://www.easy400.net/cgicbldev2p/start.pgm).
No disrespect to Brad's eRPG but some RPG-oriented interfaces can

be


very difficult to use in COBOL. Reason, in part, is that such

routines


tend


to take advantage of the facilities offered by prototypes - for
example


the


keyword CONST allows you to specify a literal instead of a variable.


COBOL


has no such option and therefore the fields usually need to be
passed exactly as specified in the called routine. That usually
requires quite a bit more work and makes the examples hard to follow.


Giovanni has already done the grunt work and provided documented
native

COBOL interfaces to CGIDEV2 routines that make it much easier.


Just a thought.  Unless Brad has added a lot of new stuff to eRPG

that


I am unaware of, I think that the capabilities of CGIDEV2 are a

close


match.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On May 10, 2015, at 10:46 AM, Kelly Cookson
<KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


wrote:
Thanks Brad.

I assume I wouldn't have any problems implementing this in ILE
COBOL.


I've seen several tutorial examples of creating JSON in RPG, which

is


made


easier by built-in functions (like trim) and by  the new +=
assignment operator. Unfortunately, RPG is not a standard language
in our shop. So


I'd


need to use eRPG SDK in ILE COBOL.


Thanks,

Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Bradley Stone
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2015 8:10 AM
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Does the eRPG SDK template system support
JSON?

Hi, Kelly.

The eRPG SDK is a template designed system, so if you create JSON


templates the eRPG SDK would work the same as if it was using XML,

HTML,


or


pretty much anything else.


It doesn't know what type of data you're creating using the

templates and replacement variables.  :)

Brad
www.bvstools.com

On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 2:15 AM, Kelly Cookson
<KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

  Suppose I want to develop a CGI program in ILE COBOL using eRPG

SDK.

Can the ILE COBOL program read a DB2 table and use the eRPG SDK
template system to return a JSON string?

Thanks,

Kelly Cookson
IT Project Leader
Dot Foods, Inc.
1.217.773.4486 ext. 12676
kcookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:kcookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


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