Working with pointers in ILE RPG

Practical usages on MQ with large-length data handling in ILE RPG

Yukihiro Minote June 20, 2013

In today's business environment, demand for sending or receiving large data within IT systems
is constantly growing and IBM i is no exception to that. To handle large data, IBM® Integrated
Language Environment® (ILE) RPG can use a pointer function. This article describes the
pointer concept, data segmentation method and how to use a pointer within ILE RPG. The
MQGET application programming interface (API) sample code is used for our modification
sample.

RPG and large message data

The RPG language is at the heart of IBM i. There can hardly be any IBM i application developer
who has never used it for building their applications. Accessing data through data description
specifications (DDS) file, such as a physical file, is an efficient way to get data easily from a
programming point of view. This is a concept that is well considered for developing business
applications quickly.

For a long time, user data that RPG has handled were not long because of the DDS I/O size
limitation (for example, the length of a physical file record must be 32766 bytes or smaller).

In V5R4 RPG, the maximum message length for a fixed-length character field is 65535, but
beyond V6R1, the size changed from 65535 to 16773104. Because the I/O size is smaller than
RPG limitation, we need not care about the character length issue in our programming cycle.

On the other hand, when we look into our business transactions today, there are many long
message lengths data, such as XML. We see business data over 64 KB message length, being
exchanged and processed. In the real world, RPG does not ignore or isolate this game change.
Even though today's RPG has already extended their capacity for large data, there are much
larger data existing on the customer's production environment. For example, the IBM WebSphere
MQ product has been used for exchanging information between systems. RPG can also handle
these data through MQ common APIs, such as MQGET. You can increase the size of the
MaxMsgLength attribute up to 100 MB on all WebSphere MQ systems at V6 or later.

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How can we handle these large message length data within RPG? The most common way is to
use application segmentation. Figure 1 shows how to do that. In this article, we will discuss pointer
in ILE RPG. Then, we will talk about pointer operation, overlaying data with a pointer-based field,
and finally the data segmentation method with ILE RPG.

Figure 1. Data segmentation overview

Using the application segmentation for large message length data

This section explains segmentation and the concept of pointer that is used for dividing data easily.

The definition for the word segmentation itself, is the act of dividing something into smaller parts,
or the state of being divided. In this article, segmentation means the program logic of dividing large
message length data into chunks of smaller message length data so that they can be handled by
a program variable. We will divide large data into 64 KB data chunks and process with a normal
RPG code logic. To do this, we use the pointer operation. What is a pointer? Which operation code
should we specify in RPG and how do we write a code using it?

The pointer in ILE RPG

The concept of pointer is not a state-of-the-art technology. Many computer languages (such as C)
have the same concept for handling data efficiently. Generally, a pointer is a useful piece of advice
or information that helps you do or understand something. In computer terminology, a pointer is a
field that contains a memory address.

Multiple occurrence data structure is a good sample of pointer. The occurrence of the database is
based on an offset of the address in the data structure.

Let's take a look at the pointers in ILE RPG.

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First, you define pointer data types '*' in D spec. You also need to define fields, arrays or data
structures whose positioning in memory is based on the value of the pointer with the Based
keyword. See Figure 2.

Figure 2. Pointer definition in D spec

With this definition, we can map the data to the location that the pointer variable addresses. This
means that any message length of data can be divided into smaller chunks. Figure 3 illustrates the
concept of pointer address operation.

Figure 3. Moving the pointer address

A pointer can show any address of the data. A field that is based on this pointer can refer or
overlay the data. We can change the value of a pointer by adding or subtracting that value. With
these operations, you will see overlaying data.

Now, we understand what a pointer is in ILE RPG programming. Next, we must understand how to
get the pointer value within an ILE RPG code.

Built-in function %ADDR

In ILE RPG, the %ADDR built-in function is used for getting the address of a pointer. From an
ILE programming model point of view, variable fields are referenced for processing data. So a
variable's pointer value is needed when coding a pointer operation. Figure 4 shows you how to use
this built-in-function.

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Figure 4. Usage of the built-in function, %ADDR

In this code snippet, variable p is defined as a type pointer. The data structure, TestDS, is also
declared. It contains two text fields. The first one is initialized as static text '1234' and second one
as '5678'. The variable field, p, is initialized as the result of %Addr(Text1). This means that the field
p retrieves the pointer value of the Text1 field, which is '1234'. This is because the variable field is
based on the pointer variable p. Next, the Eval operation 'p= %Addr(Text2)' changes the values of
pointer p. Now the value of pointer p is equal to the value of the Text2 pointer which is '5678'.

So far we have gone through ILE RPG pointer concept, definition procedure itself and its operand
in ILE RPG codes. To put these pieces together more clearly, I will give you a practical sample
program code using the MQ API, MQGET, that can handle pointers.

Sample code MQGET with pointer

The MQGET function call is used for retrieving data from the message queue. From an ILE RPG
point of view, MQGET syntax is as follows.

MQGET(HCONN, HOBJ, MSGDSC, GMO, BUFLEN, BUFFER, DATLEN,

CMPCOD, REASON)

And, its prototype definition for the call is:

C*..1....:....2....:....3....:....4....:....5....:....6....:....7..
C CALLP MQGET(HCONN : HOBJ : MSGDSC : MO :
C BUFLEN : BUFFER : DATLEN :
C CMPCOD : REASON)
D*..1....:....2....:....3....:....4....:....5....:....6....:....7..
DMQGET PR EXTPROC('MQGET')
D* Connection handle
D HCONN 10I 0 VALUE
D* Object handle
D HOBJ 10I 0 VALUE
D* Message descriptor
D MSGDSC 364A
D* Options that control the action of MQGET
D GMO 112A
D* Length in bytes of the BUFFER area
D BUFLEN 10I 0 VALUE
D* Area to contain the message data
D BUFFER * VALUE
D* Length of the message
D DATLEN 10I 0
D* Completion code
D CMPCOD 10I 0
D* Reason code qualifying CMPCOD
D REASON 10I 0

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You can see a parameter BUFFER that contains the whole message defined as type pointer. Also,
the IBM i MQ product provides a sample code for the ILE language. AMQ3GET4 is a sample code
for the MQGET function call with ILE RPG. This code is a good sample for understanding the ILE
RPG pointer operation.

In the original code, the BUFFER variable is defined as a 60-byte message length field as follows.
D BUFFER S 60

In this article, we extend that message length from 60 bytes to 32752 bytes.
D BUFFER S 32752

And, we add the following definitions to operate pointer values and addresses.
* Buffer pointer
D BUFPTR S * INZ (%ADDR(BUFFER))
*
*****ADD FOR TEST*****
D BUFF S 32752A BASED(P_BUFF)
D ARRAY S 32752A DIM(32)
D X S 10I 0
D Y S 10I 0
*****ADD FOR TEST*****

In the above code, the pointer variable BUFPTR is declared and initialized with a message length
of 32752 byte. And, the variable field, ARRAY is defined for dividing into small bytes within the ILE
RPG logic.

Here is an initialization logic for allocated pointer area.

***ADD FOR TEST***
/free
buflen = 32752* 32;
bufptr = %alloc(buflen);
for x = 0 to 31;
p_buff = bufptr + (x * %size(buff));
buff = *blanks;
endfor;
/end-free
***ADD FOR TEST***

The variable field buflen is 32752 bytes multiplied by 32, which calculates to a message length of
1048064 bytes.

The built-in %alloc is used for allocating memory area. Thus, this code allocates 5244288 bytes
long memory area and returns its pointer to the bufptr variable field. The %alloc function does
not initialize its allocated area. So, the user should take care of its initialization (the following line
shows how to do that). Each field, with a message length of 32752 bytes, is initialized as blank,
and therefore, the pointer moves to the next 32752 bytes, initializing again.

By 32 times of loop processing, the whole allocated memory area is initialized as *BLANK.

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The following code provides an example for retrieving data from the received message queue.
***ADD FOR TEST***
/free
for x = 0 to 31;
p_buff = bufptr + (x * %size(buff));
y = x + 1;
ARRAY(y) = buff;
endfor;
/end-free

***ADD FOR TEST***

As stated above, the MQGET function returns the message's pointer value. In our sample code, it
is represented by the variable field, BUFFER. So, with the above code, the message is retrieved in
chunks with 32752 bytes each. And then each message stores into the ARRAY field. With this ILE
RPG code, we can handle messages of over 1048064 bytes long. Here is the entire code for our
customization for the MQ sample AMQ3GET4.

Download code

References
• ILE RPG Language Reference > Definitions > Chapter 9. Data Types and Data Formats

Conclusion
This article described ILE RPG capability for large size data by using pointers.

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