IBM i jobs comes in two flavours – INTERACTIVE which means that a user keying into a terminal and using the program interacting with the program code, or BATCH which means this program has been submitted and is expected to execute without any human interaction.

The module below, INTERACT, determines whether your program is running in interactive or batch mode:

     h NoMain

      // This *SRVPGM will determine if this IBM iSeries job is interactive or batch
      // and return a status of *ON if its interactive and *OFF if its batch

     p pInteractive    B                    Export
     d pInteractive    PI              N

     d Format          s              8
     d RcvVarLen       s             10i 0

     d dsJobDta        ds
     d  dsJobBytesRtn                10I 0
     d  dsJobBytesAvl                10I 0
     d  dsJobName                    10A
     d  dsJobUser                    10A
     d  dsJobNumber                   6A
     d  dsJobIntern                  16A
     d  dsJobStatus                  10A
     d  dsJobType                     1A
     d  dsJobSubtype                  1A
     d  dsJobReserv1                  2A
     d  dsJobRunPty                  10I 0
     d  dsJobTimeSlc                 10I 0
     d  dsJobDftWait                 10I 0
     d  dsJobPurge                   10A

      // QUSRJOBI is an IBM *API which returns job information
     d qUSRJOBI        pr                  extpgm('QUSRJOBI')
     d   DsJob                             like(DsJobDta)
     d   Length                      10i 0 const
     d   APIFormat                    8    const
     d   ApiJob                      26    const
     d   InternJob                   16    const

        RcvVarLen = %Size(DsJobDta);
        Format = 'JOBI0100';

        qUSRJOBI ( dsjobdta : rcvvarlen : Format : '*' : ' ');

        if DSJOBTYPE = 'I';
          Return *On;
        Else;
          Return *Off;
        EndIf;

     P pInteractive    E

Use option 15 in PDM to compile INTERACT.

Issue the command:

CrtSrvPgm SrvPgm( INTERACT ) Export( *All ) ActGrp( NICKLITTEN)

To use this service program from an RPG IV program, follow these steps:

a) Include the following prototype in your source with the D-specs:

D pInteractive PR

If you expect to use this procedure in more than one program, you might consider using a /Copy member for this prototype.

b) Here are a couple of sample calls to INTERACT in the C-specs:

If pInteractive(); 
  // this is an interactive job
EndIf 

If Not pInteractive();
  // this is a batch job
Endif;

c) Use PDM option 15 to compile your program. d) Issue the following command to create your program (Note that the following assumes your program is a standalone program, i.e., a single module, named MYPGM):

CrtPgm MyPgm Module(MYPGM) BndSrvPgm(INTERACT) ActGrp(NICKLITTEN)

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