Re: another bug in FTPAPI

[Scott Klement <sk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sender: Scott Klement <sk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

> One would need to check wwExists, differeing CCSIDs, etc. and two one of 
> two things: either delete the existing file (the simple solution) or 
> change the CCSID of the file with Qp0lSetAttr (the more elegant way, but

...or to use the CHGATR CL command that I suggested in my prevous message.

   CHGATR OBJ('/foo/bar') ATR(*CCSID) VALUE(850)

This does the same thing that Qp0lSetAttr() would do.

> requiring more code lines). Oh well, you mentioned that already in your 
> reply, sorry. Anyway, I am willing to implement either, if you tell me 
> your preference.

If you'd like to code the Qp0lSetAttr() API, that'd be my first choice, 
because I think it'd be the most robust.  Put it in a subprocedure called 
"SetCCSID" or something like that to hide the complexity from the rest of 
the code.


> Speaking of "old and sloppy code"... I have found you pretty often (if not 
> always) append the x'00' to strings yourself (and have to remove it at other 
> times) and pass %addr(string) to the various IFS APIs.I guess that is due to 
> historical reasons, when there was no Options(*String)?

Yes, FTPAPI is very old.  It was originally written for V3R2 -- 
options(*string) was added to the language in V3R7, so it wasn't available 
to V3R2 programs.   I prefer options(*string), and now that V3R2 is no 
longer supported in FTPAPI, it can be changed to use it.


> I would not mind to do some fixing to various procedures, if you tell me 
> which and your general preferences. I would do that as sort of "pay back" for 
> the tremendous help I got from your FTPAPI (btw, I am also in need of the SSL 
> changes; will wait patiently, though).

Unfortunately, the SSL support that Craig Strong contributed to the 
project assumes that you have only one FTP session, so if you tried to use 
it with more than one session, it'd cause settings between them to get 
garbled and probably crash FTPAPI.  I could fix it, but I haven't had the 
time.


> Another question: do you still deem it necessary to maintain 
> compatibility to V4R4 (you seem to question it yourself on your web 
> site), or should we move to free form and some neater coding styles, 
> e.g.  qualified DS, in new code?

I, personally, don't need V4R4.  In fact, one of the problems I have with 
every release of both FTPAPI and HTTPAPI is that I have no way to test 
whether they work on old releases like V4R4, since I don't have access to 
machines that old.

However, there have been thousands of people who downloaded FTPAPI, and I 
don't know what THEY need....

> Oh yes, while we are talking... you mentioned replacing code pages with 
> CCSIDs. Well, I always wanted to ask someone... what's the subtle 
> differences between them? I have to say that I am new to iSeries 
> programming... CCSIDs seem to be very unique to IBM. However, I do not 
> really tackle the difference between code page 819 and CCSID 819? Pardon 
> my ignorance in advance.

A CCSID is a number that identifies an encoding scheme and one or more 
character set/code page pairs.

In most Western character sets (or, at least, the ones I've worked with) 
there's only one code page in a CCSID, and the CCSID was given a number 
that matches the code page.  For example, CCSID 819 is also codepage 819. 
But, this is not always the case in Eastern languages where there can 
potentially be several code pages used to represent their language.  One 
CCSID is all they need to address all of the required code pages.

At least, that's how I understand it...   I'm far from an expert on this 
topic.  Since my company only does business in the United States, and we 
use the same language (English) throughout the country, I don't get the 
opportunity to work with lots of different CCSIDs.  Most of what I know 
about them comes from playing around in my spare time :)

You might find this web site to be useful:
http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/software/globalization/

(or, like me, you might find it to be confusing!)

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