September 29

1 comments

What is an RPG Open Access Handler?

By NickLitten

September 29, 2017

Access, as400, HANDLER, IBM i, iseries, Open, RPG, RPGLE, RPGOA

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)

  • Hello. Sometimes I get close to RPG-OA and then run away like a coward. Honestly, I don’t understand anything. A very simple question: can I develop an RPG program that can interact with a web page (something in HTML) in such a way that it can capture information, so that it is no longer necessary to work with green screens?
    What should I know to start working with web pages with RPG?

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