An authorization list defines the user authority for the objects in the list. When an object is created associate it with the authorization list so that we should not create individual objects with private authorities and should be getting authority based on the authorization list. It controls the individual and *PUBLIC authority to all the objects in the authorization list.

Authorization list commands:

CRTAUTL: This command creates the authorization list.
CRTAUTL AUTL(ListName)

GRTOBJAUT: This command allows you to associate the authorization list with the files.
GRTOBJAUT OBJ(libname/*ALL) OBJTYPE(*FILE) AUTL(listname)
If you run the above command, you are going to add all the files in the specified library to the authorization list ListName.

ADDAUTLE: This command allows you to grant users authority to the lists.
ADDAUTLE AUTL(ListName) USER(ADMIN) AUT(*USE)
If you run the above command, you are going to provide *USE authority to user ADMIN for the authorization list ListName.

EDTAUTL: This command allows you to add and remove users from the list and specify their authority to the list.

DLTAUTL: This command allows you to delete an authorization list.

DSPAUTL: This command allows you to display an authorization list.

WRKAUTL: This command allows you to work with authorization lists. Using this command you can display, delete, edit, display the list objects, or change the text for an authorization list.
WRKAUTL AUTL(*ALL)
The above command displays all of the authorization lists that you own or have the authority to view.

To perform a substring on a date field, you will first have to cast the field to a string. This can be done using %char.

The below example will convert the date field to ISO DATEFMT first and then cast it to the character. After that, the substring (%sst) function is applied.

%sst(%char(datefield "ISO") 1 4) *EQ '1980'

Now use it with OPNQRYF

OPNQRYF
FILE(libname/filename)
QRYSLT((%sst(%char(datefield "ISO") 1 4) *EQ '1980'))

You can find any locks on an IFS object using the QP0FPTOS API. You can run this API from the command line with QSECOFR or any profile with *SERVICE special authority.

CALL PGM(QP0FPTOS) PARM(*LSTOBJREF 'ifspathofObject' *FORMAT2)

This command will output a spool file that tells any locks held for the object. After the program runs you will see the message: The dump request has completed. The latest spooled file QSYSPRT with user data QP0FDUMP has the dump.

If you want to get the list of all the files in a library with a field whose value is automatically generated by an identity, i.e., an identity column defined, then you can use the following SQL query.

select table_schema, table_name, column_name, data_type, length,
numeric_scale, identity_generation
from syscolumns
where table_schema = 'LibName' and is_identity = 'YES'

You can then create a cursor out of this query in your SQLRPGLE program and perform your further tasks.

You can share using Operations Navigator.

Let’s suppose we have created an IFS folder sharedfiles, and I want to share it so that it will be available on my Windows PC.

Sharing using the operations navigator:

• Open the Operations Navigator.
• Expand My Connections.
• expand the IBM i system (pub400.com or xxx.xxx.xx.xxx).
• Expand File Systems
• Right-click on File Shares under Integrated File System.
• Select New and then Select File Share….
• A dialog to create the new file share will be prompted.
• Enter a share name sharedfiles.
• Change the Access to Read/Write.
• Set the Path name such as /home/admin/sharedfiles.
• Click the OK button.
• A share name entry will be created.

How to map the folder to the Windows PC:

• Select the Start button.
• Search for file explorer.
• Right-click on it and select Map Network Drive.
• The dialog will appear.
• Choose one Drive letter that is not used. Assume we selected the drive letter Z.
• For the Folder enter the path to the IFS folder which is /home/admin/sharedfiles.
• Uncheck the Reconnect at sign-in checkbox since Windows and IBM i sign-on details may be different.
• Check the Connect using different credentials checkbox.
• Click on the Finish button.
• The Enter Network Password dialog appears.
• Enter your IBM i username and password here and you may check  Remember my credentials at your convenience.
• Click OK.
• Finally, Z: drive is mapped to the IFS folder /home/admin/sharedfiles.

Because there is no external description for system36 files. Thus, all of that data is contained in a single field when you access the file in SQL. Therefore, when you want to use SQL to access data from a system36 file you need to substring the data you want from the field.

For Example, if the System36 file name is FILE1, and its single field is FLD1 then you can use the below SQL to get data from system36 files, You can change substring positions at your end as per your system36 file.

Select substr(fld1, 5, 4), substr(fld1,10,5) from FILE1
where substr(fld1,1,4) = 'A001'

Please note that you can get the field name of the system6 file by typing SQL select * from file1 and taking F4 to prompt the SQL query and then prompt the select fields.

You can use the following commands to save and restore an IFS object to and from the save file.

Save IFS objects to save file (SAVF):
SAV DEV('/qsys.lib/libname.lib/savefilename.file')
OBJ(('/home/admin/files/test1.txt') ('/home/admin/files/test2.txt'))

Here, We use the Save object (SAV) command and specify the save file name with the fully qualified path in the DEV parameter, In the OBJ parameter specifies the files test1.txt and test2.txt to be saved in the save file specified in the DEV parameter.

Restore IFS objects from the save file (SAVF) to the same IFS path from where it Saved:

RST DEV('/qsys.lib/libname.lib/savefilename.file')
OBJ(('/home/admin/files/test1.txt')
('/home/admin/files/test2.txt'))
CRTPRNDIR(*YES)

Here, We use the Restore object (RST) command and specify the save file name with the fully qualified path in the DEV parameter, In the OBJ parameter specifies the files test1.txt and test2.txt to be restored from the save file specified in the DEV parameter. Also, the CRTPRNDIR parameter is *YES so that it would create a parent folder if not already exist.

Restore IFS objects from the save file (SAVF) to the different IFS path from where it Saved:
RST DEV('/qsys.lib/libname.lib/savefilename.file')
OBJ(('/home/admin/files/test1.txt' *INCLUDE
'/home/admin/files/restore/test1.txt')
('/home/admin/files/test2.txt' *INCLUDE
'/home/admin/files/newfolder/test2.txt'))
CRTPRNDIR(*YES)
Here, We use the Restore object (RST) command and specify the save file name with the fully qualified path in the DEV parameter, In the OBJ parameter specifies the files test1.txt and after *INCLUDE specified the new object name/path and test2.txt and after *INCLUDE specified the new object name/path to be restored from the save file specified in the DEV parameter. Also, the CRTPRNDIR parameter is *YES so that it would create a parent folder if not already exist.

Note: The new object/path will be created by the command RST itself. So, no need for new folders to exist before running the RST command.

In that situation, you can use System i Navigator. You can follow the below steps to  run SQL queries using System i Navigator instead of STRSQL.

1. Start  System i Navigator and log in with the user ID and password.
2. Go to My Connections -> Your System->Databases->Schemas.
3. In the bottom right panel of Databases tasks, you will see the option Run an SQL script.
4. Click on it. The Untitled -Run SQL scripts- system name window opens and there you can type your SQL queries and run them. Please note that you must use .(dot) instead of /(slash) to qualify the library name with the file.

Using SQL we can create a user-defined function (UDF) for calculating the number of business/working dates between two dates, similar to the NETWORKDAYS function for Microsoft Excel.

Creating the SQL function:
We can execute the following SQL code to create our SQL function. You can either run the below scripts from the Run SQL script option from IBM i Access client solutions (ACS) or on IBM i green screen, write the script within a source member of source type SQL at the location libname/srcpfname and then use RUNSQLSTM SRCFILE(libname/srcpfname) SRCMBR(srcmbrname) COMMT(*NONE) DFTRDBCOL(libname) DBGVIEW(*SOURCE) command to execute this script to create SQL function.

create or replace function libname.workingday(startdate DATE,
enddate DATE)
returns INTEGER
language SQL
is deterministic
begin
  declare workingday INTEGER default 0;
  declare tempdate DATE;
  set tempdate = startdate;
  while days(tempdate) <= days(enddate) do
    if dayofweek_iso(tempdate) <> 6 and
       dayofweek_iso(tempdate) <> 7 then
      set workingday = workday + 1;
     end if;
     set tempdate = date(days(tempdate) + 1);   
  end while;
  return workingday; 
end; 

Explanation of the code:
Line 1 -2: Create and replace function workingday that accepts two parameters startdate and enddate of type date.
Line 3: The SQL function returns an integer value which is the number of business/working days.
Line 4-5: Language is SQL and it is deterministic i.e. it returns the same value on the same input dates each time.
Line 6: begin of the function
Line 7: Declare workingday variable of type integer and initialize with value 0.
Line 8: Declare tempdate variable of type date.
Line 9: set the value of tempdate as startdate.
Line 10-16: Run the while loop until days of tempdate <= days of enddate. Days() function returns the integer representation of the date i.e. for Jan 1, 0001(0001-01-01) it returns 1, for (0001-01-02) it returns 2 and so on. Then we check if tempdate is not the 6th and 7th day of the week using DAYOFWEEK_ISO() function then we set the workingday as workingday + 1 i.e. increment by 1 and no increment when tempdate is the 6th and 7th day of the week. After end if; we increment the tempdate by 1 i.e. increment the number of days extracted from tempdate and convert back to date date(days(tempdate) + 1)and while loop end.
Line 17: Return the workingday value.
Line 18: end of function.
Important Point:
Once the function was created an object of the type *SRVPGM and attribute CLE was created in the specified library.

How to call SQL function from Run SQL script ACS or STRSQL session on IBM i:

select libname.workingday('2024-09-05','2024-09-10) from sysibm.sysdummy1

the number of business/working days returned is 4. Since the 5th is Thursday and the 10th is Tuesday and there are total days in between these two dates are 6 and non-working days are 2 i.e. 7th and 8th (Saturday and Sunday) therefore working days are only 4.

You can use hexadecimal numbers to pass a numeric(integer) value to a parameter in the RPG program when calling it from the command line.

Passing numeric value to a packed decimal numeric field in RPG:

CALL PGM(PGM1) PARM((x'0001F') (x'00010F'))

Here, the first parameter is a 3-length numeric field and passing value 1. The second parameter is a 4-length numeric field with and passing value of 10.

To pass a hexadecimal field you must start with x after X within quotes, there must be an even number of positions including the F.

So, passing value 1 to the numeric length 3 would be x’001F’ where F denotes a positive number and it is a signed bit. And as I remember we pass D for negative numbers.

However, passing value 10 to numeric length 4 is not x'0010F' since inside single quotes 0010F is an odd number of digits. So the correct value would be x'00010F i.e. add an extra zero in front of the number to make it an even number of positions within single quotes including F after X.

Just refer to some examples to understand it a little bit more,

1. If you trying to pass value 5.2 to the decimal (3,1) field and 543 value to the decimal (3) field.
   CALL PGM(PGM1) PARM((5.2) (543))
CALL PGM(PGM1) PARM((x'052F') (x'543F'))
2. If you trying to pass value 254674 to the numeric parameter of length 6 field.
   CALL PGM(PGM1) PARM((254674)
CALL PGM(PGM1) PARM((x'0254674F'))
   Add an extra 0 at the start of the number after x and within quotes so that to make it an even number of digits in the hex value being passed.

Passing 4-byte integer value to integer (10I) field field in RPG:
If you try to pass 1 and 10 respectively
CALL PGM(PGM1) PARM((x'00000001') (x'0000000A'))
Just refer to some other examples to understand it a little more:
Passing value for 3I and 5I and 10I and 20I parameters in RPG

1. passing value 10 to each 3I and 5I and 10I and 20I parameters in RPG
   CALL PGM(PGM1) PARM((X'0A') (X'000A') (X'0000000A') (X'000000000000000A'))
2. passing value 1 to each 3I and 5I and 10I and 20I parameters in RPG
   CALL PGM(PGM1) PARM((X'01') (X'0001') (X'00000001') (X'0000000000000001'))
3. passing value 18 to each 3I and 5I and 10I and 20I parameters in RPG
   CALL PGM(PGM1) PARM((X'12') (X'0012') (X'00000012') (X'0000000000000012'))

You can check convert decimal to hex value here.

Sample program
This is the sample program that you can create at your end and test the above calls for passing Integer values in 3I, 5I, 10I, and 20I parameters in the RPG program:

     D main            PR                  EXTPGM('PGM1') 
     D                                3I 0                      
     D                                5I 0                      
     D                               10I 0                      
     D                               20I 0                      
     D main            PI                                       
     D num1                           3I 0                      
     D num2                           5I 0                      
     D num3                          10I 0                      
     D num4                          20I 0                      
      /Free                                                     
           dsply num1;                                          
           dsply num2;                                          
           dsply num3;                                          
           dsply num4;                                          
                                                                
           *INLR  = *ON;                                        
      /End-Free       

You can follow the below steps to update the last modification date for all posts, questions, and pages on your WordPress site sitemap.xml at once.

Using SQL Query for bulk update:

You can use SQL queries to update the post_modified and post_modified_gmt fields in the WordPress database.

• Please back up your database before making any changes using SQL query.
• Access your WordPress database from your hosting provider site using a tool like phpMyAdmin.
• Run the following SQL query to update the modification date to the current date and time for all posts, pages, and questions on your site.
  UPDATE wp_posts
SET post_modified = NOW(),
post_modified_gmt = UTC_TIMESTAMP()
WHERE post_type in ('post', 'page','question')
AND post_status = 'publish';This SQL query updates the post_modified date, which Yoast uses to generate the tag in your sitemap.

You can execute the following SQL query to get the number of records and file size of each file/table in your library.

select system_table_name, number_rows, data_size from
qsys2.systablestat where system_table_schema = 'Libname'

Here in this SQL query, we are selecting data from the IBM i catalog systablestat present in the QSYS2 library.

You can execute the RUNJVA command on the IBM i which is used to run Java commands on the IBM i machine.

When you run RUNJVA CLASS(*VERSION), it will display the installed Java version on your IBM i machine.

The output of this command would look like:

Java Shell Display

java version "1.8.0_411"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 8.0.8.25 - pap6480sr8fp25-20240328_01(SR8 FP25))
IBM J9 VM (build 2.9, JRE 1.8.0 OS/400 ppc64-64-Bit Compressed References 20240305_66992 (JIT enabled, AOT enabled)
OpenJ9 - e3126d7
OMR - f2f50a8
IBM - b81b1e2)
JCL - 20240322_01 based on Oracle jdk8u411-b09
Java program completed

Here, as per the above output, the Java version is 1.8.0_411 which is a specific build of Java 1.8 (Java 8).

Looking at both errors SQL0204 and SQL5016 it is clear that the *SQL Naming convention is set as default in your STRSQL session attributes.
With the *SQL Naming convention being set on your STRSQL session you cannot use the qualifier slash(/) and instead, you have to only rely on using dot(.) as a qualifier. Also, with the *SQL naming convention it will search for the file/table in the schema name same as the user profile on the IBM i system.
Therefore, both errors SQL0204 i.e. PF in DEVELOPER type *FILE not found, and SQL5016 i.e. Qualified object name PF1 not valid. are valid errors and they are more of a type of Diagnostic error.
Therefore, to fix this problem use both slash(/) and dot(.) as a qualifier and run SQL queries without the need to qualify file/table with library name and instead search in the set library list in the same session you need to change the STRSQL session attribute namely Naming convention. So, please change the Naming convention attribute from *SQL to *SYS. You can do so by these steps:

• On STRSQL session press F13 (shift + F1). It will show the following options:

  Interactive SQL Session Services
  
  Select one of the following: 
  
  1. Change session attributes 
  2. Print current session 
  3. Remove all entries from current session 
  4. Save session in source file 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Selection 
       1

• Take option 1 to change session attributes. It will show the following menu:

  Change Session Attributes 
  
  Type choices, press Enter. 
  
  Statement processing . . . . . *RUN *RUN, *VLD, *SYN 
  SELECT output . . . . . . . . 1 1=Display, 2=Printer 
  3=File 
  Commitment control . . . . . . *NONE *NONE, *CHG, *CS, *ALL, *RR 
  *NC, *UR, *RS 
  Date format . . . . . . . . . u *JOB, *USA, *ISO, *EUR, *JIS
  *MDY, *DMY, *YMD, *JUL 
  Date separator . . . . . . . . '/' *JOB, '/', '.', ',', '-' 
  ' ', *BLANK 
  Time format . . . . . . . . . *HMS *HMS, *USA, *ISO 
  *EUR, *JIS 
  Time separator . . . . . . . . ':' *JOB, ':', '.', ',' 
  ' ', *BLANK 
  Data refresh . . . . . . . . . *ALWAYS *ALWAYS, *FORWARD 
  Allow copy data . . . . . . . *YES *YES, *OPTIMIZE, *NO 
  Naming convention . . . . . . *SQL *SYS, *SQL 

• Change the Naming convention from *SQL to *SYS.
• Exit from the menu.
• Exit from the STRSQL session.
• Now add the library to the library list from the command line using the command ADDLIBLE LIB(DEVLIB). Go back to the STRSQL session and run SQL queries without qualifying the library name with file/table name or even using any qualifier either slash(/) or dot(.) if you are qualifying the file/table name.

You can save the JAR file stored at the IFS path to the save file using the command SAV. Please follow these steps to save the JAR file to save file.

• Create a save file in your devlib by running the CRTSAVF command from the command line on IBM i green screen. For Example, crtsavf file(testlib/savf1).
• Locate the IFS path and JAR file name on IFS and note it down. Assuming your JAR file is located at /home/developer/files/jar1.jar.
• Execute the SAV command from the command line to save the JAR file to save file.
  SAV DEV('/qsys.lib/testlib.lib/savf1.file')
OBJ(('/home/developer/files/jar1.jar'))
• This command will save the JAR file jar1.jar to the save file savf1. You can then view the save file contents using the command dspsavf testlib/savf10 there you will see the directory from where this JAR file is saved to this save file.

You can map your keyboard on the IBM i ACS 5250 emulator to use CTRL + C and CTRL + V keys by following these steps:

1. Open ACS 5250 emulator window.
2. Click on Edit menu option on top and from Preferences select the Keyboard... option.
3. Keyboard dialog box appears that opens the IBMi.kmp file from the emulator location on your Windows PC.
4. On this dialog, you will see the Key Assignment tab. Be on it.
5. Below that you will see a drop-down box for the option Category. Click on it and select Menu Commands from the drop-down box.
6. Below Category, you will now notice the list of Menu commands and their Key value is being displayed.
7. Scroll down the menu commands list and locate the Copy command and select it. The selected COPY menu command will get a blue highlight indicating its selection.
8. Once the Copy command is selected from the menu commands list, Assign a key button below the list gets enabled. Click on it. This will show the message above that the message Press a key.
9. Then I press and hold the CTRL key first and then press C and it enters the assignment value in the key column against the Copy command in the Menu command list. Please note that if you press the first key CTRL and release, it gets assigned as a value to the key column again Copy command right away without waiting for the second key.
10. Repeat steps 7 through 9 for CTRL + V key setup for Paste menu command.
11. Click on the Save button to save the keyboard mapping settings for CTRL + C and CTRL + V keys in IBMi.kmp file.

First, open the command prompt on your Windows machine. Navigate to your folder where you want to clone the forked repo assuming you have forked the original repo under your username. Suppose, you want to clone the fork repo to the desktop of your Windows PC then you execute cd desktop to navigate to the desktop.

After that run the git clone fork-repo-url to clone the fork repo to the local Windows machine.

git clone https://github.com/myusername/javacode.git

this command will start cloning your fork repo on your desktop and will show the output like this on the command prompt.

Cloning into 'javacode'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 845, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (461/461), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (157/157), done.
remote: Total 845 (delta 325), reused 304 (delta 304), pack-reused 384 (from 1)
Receiving objects: 100% (845/845), 8.24 MiB | 11.34 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (387/387), done.

Once cloning is done, you can then run dir to see if the clone directory is created on the desktop. If created then run cd javacode to navigate to your cloned folder. Once you are in your cloned folder run the command dir again to see files cloned from the Github fork repo inside your desktop clone folder.

After cloning, we need to set up a remote by running the following command on cmd.

git remote -v

This will list out the origin of the remote for this project which is from the fork.

origin https://github.com/myusername/javacode.git (fetch)
origin https://github.com/myusername/javacode.git (push)

Now, set up a remote to the main remote repo which allows syncing of the fork repo with the main repo. for this, we need the URL of the original repo.

You can get this main original repo URL by clicking on the link after your “repo forked from the link” and there under Code –> under HTTPS -> copy the original repo URL to the clipboard.

Now under the command prompt window type the command to add remote to the main original repo.

git remote add upstream https://github.com/Originalusername/javacode.git

after this run this command again on the command prompt,

git remote -v

This will now list the fork repo as the origin and the original repo as upstream.

origin https://github.com/myusername/javacode.git (fetch)
origin https://github.com/myusername/javacode.git (push)
upstream https://github.com/originalusername/javacode.git (fetch)
upstream https://github.com/originalusername/javacode.git (push)

Now try to open this cloned project on IntelliJ make changes commit and push to your fork repo it will be successful and you will be able to see your changes inside the GitHub forked repo. Now, if you want, you can request the original author to pull your changes using a pull request on GitHub.

I have enabled Prevent crawling of internal site search URL settings for the Advanced Crawl optimization; however, I cannot see the added directives to my robots.txt file.

Enabling the settings Prevent crawling of internal site search URLs
Add a disallow rule to my robots.txt file to prevent the crawling of URLs like ?s=, /search/ and /page/*/?s=.”, this should add the following directives in the robots.txt file:

Disallow: /?s=
Disallow: /page/*/?s=
Disallow: /search/

However, I observed that the crawl directives would not be added to my default robots.txt file. Instead, it has already been added to the static robots.txt file here: https://example.com/?robots=1.

the code added to static robots.txt which is the Yoast output.

# START YOAST BLOCK
# ---------------------------
User-agent: *
Disallow: /?s=
Disallow: /page/*/?s=
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /wp-json/
Disallow: /?rest_route=

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml
# ---------------------------
# END YOAST BLOCK

robots.txt file is placed in the root directory of your WordPress site that provides instructions to the web crawler as to which part of the site is crawled or not.

For example, you can always block certain directories, web pages, or other resources on your website from getting indexed by search engines like Google or Bing.

You can see the contents of the robots.txt file by going to the page https://example.com/robots.txt.

On the other hand, meta robots tag ?robots=1 is used at a page level to control whether individual pages should be indexed or followed.

When you visit a page on your website with the ?robots=1 query parameter, then you can check the robots meta tags settings for that specific page.

You can see how indexing instructions like index, noindex, follow, and nofollow are applied to your specific page.