Method for overcoming the known limitation of IBM i of not being able to identify the object type from PCML (03-Nov-2009)

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IP.com Prior Art Database Disclosure (Source: IPCOM)

Disclosure Number IPCOM000189277D dated 03-Nov-2009

Originally published in Prior Art Database

Disclosed by: IBM

Country: Undisclosed

Disclosure File: 6 pages / 157.7 KB / English (United States)

Disclosed is a method which can be used for identifying the object type from a given PCML(Program Call Markup Language). PCML is based upon the Extensible Markup Language (XML), is a tag syntax used to describe the input and output parameters for server programs of IBM i. PCML does not contain any information about the type of the program(object type) that was compiled to generate the PCML.IBMi based PCML has a limitation that it is not possible to identify the object type from the PCML.In this invention, we have proposed a method to overcome this limitation, thus making it possible to identify the object type from PCML and determine whether the object type is Java, C++, RPG or COBOL.

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Method for overcoming the known limitation of IBM i of not being able to identify the object type from PCML

PCML is used to define IBM i program interfaces, i.e input/output parameters for different types of i5 objects like Java,COBOL,RPG,C and C++. PCML files are generated when i5

programs in

rompts the user to select the object type (RPG/COBOL/Java/C/C++) of the PCML files to be discovered.Once the user selects the object type, the external service wizard will display the PCMLs discovered from IBM i.As, the adapter is not able to distinguish between the PCMLs based on their object types,all the PCMLs will get displayed irrespective of the object type which was selected earlier.So the user needs to ensure that he does not select a PCML of an object type different from the one he had selected earlier.Selection of a PCML of a different object type could lead to potential runtime failures.

The above scenario is demonstrated in the figure shown below in Fig.1.

COBOL, RPG,Java,C or C++ are compiled.

PCML does not contain any information about the object type of the program which was compiled to generate the PCML.However, there are many situations where there is a need to identify the object type from the PCML.

As an example of a situation where this may be needed, the *WebSphere Adapter for IBM i calls different types of objects like RPG, COBOL,Java. To discover these objects from IBM i, the adapter uses PCML files as input to the external service wizard. The external service wizard

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Fig. 1 Scenario in WebSphere Adapter for IBM i where this invention can be used.

This invention proposes a method to overcome this limitation of IBMi based PCML of not being able to distinguish between PCMLs based on the object type.The method identifies the object type from the PCML by reading an attribute 'path' from the PCML and retrieving the attribute of the program object located at the specified path. This attribute can be used to identify the object type from the PCML.

The problem in IBM i adapter mentioned above will get resolved if the method proposed in this invention is applied.Fig 2. shows the scenario after this invention is implemented.

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