In a world where build automation is a mystical art, one brave warrior dares to conquer the realm of “RULES.mk” config files with Visual Studio Code and IBM i. Join us on this thrilling adventure! Step 1: Prepare for Battle (Install the Necessary Extensions) Gather your trusty steed (Visual Studio Code) and equip it with

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If you have read any of my previous blogs about IBM i Programming, the chances are, you know I’m becoming a bit of a VS-Code fanboy… or maybe Fanman… well… probably fangeezer is most accurate. Over the last couple of months, we’ve seen some really neat updates to the Code for IBM i and other

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Or — Two cool techniques to find the largest IBM i IFS Folders But first, what is the IFS? The IBM i Integrated File System (IFS) is a component of the IBM i operating system. It provides a unified interface for accessing and managing different types of file systems, similar to those found in personal

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What is an IBM i PATH? In PASE (Portable Application Solutions Environment), $PATH is an environment variable that stores a list of directories where the system searches for executable files, such as commands and programs. The PATH is like a *LIBL for open source. Just like library lists, the PATH setting only exists during our

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To use a 5250 green screen terminal in Visual Studio Code (VS Code) for IBM i, follow these steps: By having both your code and 5250 terminals within the same IDE, you’ll find it more efficient for RPG and open-source development.

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Trick Question – the answer is moot because the AS400 is long dead. That glorious old creamy compuiter system hasn’t been around for decades. But, it’s grandson, the IBM POWER SYSTEM has a fully backward compatible version of the DLS. So, the question might be more accurately asked liked this: Is the IBM i DLS

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Not dying users, you big silly! Are your IBM i Users Passwords Expiring? Every IBM i User Profile can be created with an automatic expiration date set against it. This forces regular password changes. Pretty standard stuff right? This is rarely a problem for interactive users – who will see the change password screen: But,

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How to delete first few rows from a file with IBM i SQL This morning I was working with a flatfile import from IFS into a DB2 database file. This should have been straight forward but the flat file contained several rows of crappy data at the start of the file. *ugh* Since I am

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The maximum password complexity on IBM i can be quite extensive, especially when using higher password levels. Here are the key points: Which raises the obvious question: How do I go about setting long IBM i passwords to match those in the Windows World? By setting the system to these higher levels, you can significantly

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I was updating a little RPG utility this morning to add some more detail to a spreadsheet it generated. Adding the Library Description will help the non-propeller heads who read this stuff. This is super easy to do with a single line of SQL added to your RPG program. What is this spreadsheet you are

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Some of IBM’s error messages are more cryptic than others. Copying files from the IFS using CPYFRMIMPF sometimes spits out error messages which are less than clear: CPYFRMIMPF FRMSTMF(‘/FOLDER/FOLDER/FILE’) TOFILE(*LIBL/FILENAME) MBROPT(REPLACE) RCDDLM(LF) STRDLM(NONE) RMVBLANK(NONE)FLDDLM(TAB) ERRRCDOPT(REPLACE) RPLNULLVAL(FLDDFT) File system error occurred. Error number 3021Copy command ended because of error. Internet Search for CPYFRMIMPF 3021 shows nothing!

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IBM i Data Obfuscation – Making Data Foggy Murky and Squinty A little while ago, I wrote a data obfuscation tool – which I decided to call Data Fogging. This is specifically to solve the data privacy problems that we face when we want to suck down real data from production environments to our development

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