What is an RPG Open Access Handler?

It’s not someone that makes door handles is it? In software development a handler is a routine/function/method specializing in working with a certain type of data or focused on doing a special task. For example: Event handler – Receives and digests events and signals from the surrounding system (e.g. OS or GUI) or RPG HANDLER – Send/Receives data from the IO device (e.g. PF/DSPF/PRTF) to another source (e.g. IFS, XML, JSON).

In RPG a Handler handles more than just Lions

han·dler

ˈhandlər/

noun

1. 1.

   a person who handles or deals with certain articles or commodities.

   “a baggage handler”
2. 2.

   a person who trains or has charge of an animal.

   “the performance of dog and handler in the ring must be accurate and correct”

If you are an IBM i RPG programmer then a HANDLER is the interface/method which handle the communication with the wide range of available resources and devices.

I’ve been playing with handlers for a while now and managed to store lots of interesting documents and code snippets. So, it’s time to put them all in one place so I can refer to them and also hopefully help some other RPG nerds out…

Where can I find technical information on how to use an RPG HANDLER?

I highly recommend downloading and consuming this presentation PARTNER400_-_RPG_Open_Access_By_Example

Jon Paris has written several excellent articles about RPG OPEN ACCESS

Here are links to a few:

V7’s RPG Enhancements Include Open Access! – Jon Paris (April 2010)
http://www.mcpressonline.com/programming/rpg/v7s-rpg-enhancements-include-open-access.html

Exploring Open Access for RPG – Jon Paris and Susan Gantner (July 2010)
http://ibmsystemsmag.blogs.com/idevelop/2010/07/open-access-for-rpg.html

Getting a Handle on RPGís Open Access – Discover how simple it is to create a generic handler – Jon Paris and Susan Gantner (July 2010) – Browser implementation of a print report
http://ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/developer/rpg/getting-a-handle-on-rpg’s-open-access/

Buffer handler for Currency Exchange web service: http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/developer/general/oa_rpg/

Creating an OA CSV Writer http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/developer/rpg/Getting-a-Handle-on-RPG’s-Open-Access/

Handling Input Handlers With RPG Open Access – Basic Input CSV handler: http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/developer/rpg/input_handlers/

Making the CSV reader more flexible: http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/developer/rpg/flexible_input_handlers

More Flexible Handler – http://ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/developer/rpg/flexible_input_handlers/

Some other Providers (for Open Access Handlers)