Software Configuration Management Tools for i5/OS

0.2.16

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Introduction to SCM Tools for i5/OS

SCM tools for i5/OS is a subproject of i5/OS Programmer's Toolkit. The purpose of SCM tools for i5/OS is NOT to design and implement a new series of i5/OS specific SCM tools. The purpose of it is to help i5/OS programmers to maintain and build their sources that are stored in stream files in the i5/OS integrated file system (IFS) and then exploit the power of efficient and mature SCM softwares from common platforms on i5/OS.

First, by maintaining source code via IFS stream files i5/OS programmers can take advantages of mature open source SCM softwares (such as Subversion) directly. In many i5/OS shops, programmers used to store source code in the QSYS.LIB file system, aka, members of source physical files. While a SVN client depends on hierarchical file systems and stream files intensively. For example, a SVN client stores SVN control files in a hidden directory named .svn in the current working directory. This is obviously impossible in the three-layer structure (library/source PF/member) of the QSYS.LIB file system. Also existing SVN clients access source stream files (via C library routines or Java stream file APIs), while i5/OS source PF members are record files.

Second, storing source code in IFS stream files enables i5/OS programmer to utilize build tools migrated from other platforms to improve the efficieny of the building process. For example, the AIX make utility is avaible through the PASE enviroment. Furthermore, working with IFS source stream code through the PASE environment will bring extra bonus, stream files created in the PASE environment are in PC character sets (such as UTF-8) instead of EBCDIC. This fact is important for other SCM softwares that are migrated from common platforms. Since most common platform softwares are unware of IBM's EBCDIC encoding.

To maintain and build i5/OS HLL source code in stream files, we must conquer the following challenges:

• The Source Entry Utility (SEU) is designed to work with QSYS.LIB source members only. For i5/OS programmers who work at green screens it is unimaginable to code fixed-form HLL source code such as RPG without the help from SEU.
• Many i5/OS HLL compilers support source stream files, but not all. There're still many compiler commands do not support source stream files, such as CRTCLPGM (Create OPM CL Program), CRTCLMOD (Create CL Module), CRTBNDCL (Create Bound CL Program), CRTPF (Create Physical File), CRTLF (Create Logical File), CRTCMD (Create Command), CRTRPGPGM (Create OPM RPG Program), CRTCBLPGM (Create OPM COBOL Program), etc.

And here's our solution:

• CL Command Start SEU on Stream Files (STMFSEU)
• CL Command Create Object from STMF (CRTFRMSTMF)

Additionally, there is an article named A Fresh Approach to SCM that has covered several related topics including:

• Selecting and using a Subversion client in i5/OS
• Editing stream source files using STMFSEU
• Automating build processes via the make utility that is available in the PASE

Screen Shots of SCM Tools for i5/OS

• Explicitly Specify SRCTYPE Parameter of CL Command STMFSEU
• Specify CCSID for Newly Created Stream Files