Technical Considerations

Technical Considerations

This chapter provides some additional technical information about the CA 2E Toolkit utilities including, installation instructions; system authorization, storage, and backup requirements; print output information; database file descriptions, international character set considerations; and CL commands.

This section contains the following topics:

Installing the Utilities

System Authorization Requirements

Installing the Utilities

Instructions for installing the Toolkit utilities are supplied with the Toolkit software. Read the instructions carefully before installing the utilities.

Some versions of Toolkit contain copy protection and will only run on CPUs that are authorized. Although all of the Toolkit utilities are shipped to you, only the modules of Toolkit that you have purchased will be authorized for use. To authorize your copy of the software to run on your CPU you must use the Toolkit command Grant Product Authorization (YGRTPRDAUT) as described in the installation instructions.

Displaying Expiry Date

You may check which modules you are authorized to use and your expiry date by using the Toolkit command Display Expiry Date (YDSPEXPDAT).

System Authorization Requirements

To use a Toolkit utility you must be authorized to each i OS command that the utility uses.

The Toolkit utilities do not give users the right to do anything that they might not otherwise be allowed to do.

For instance, a user who is not authorized to use the Create Physical File command (YCRTPF), will not be authorized to use the Toolkit command Create Design File (YCRTDSNF). The shipped system authorities are sufficient to allow most users to use the Toolkit utilities.

Storage Requirements

The complete Toolkit package takes about 18 MB of disk storage. The package is contained within two libraries, Y1SY and Y1SY38. About 3.4 MB of the storage is required for the interactive help text, including command diagrams. If you are short of storage, you may delete the help text without affecting the performance of any of the utilities. This can be done as follows:

DLTF FILE(Y1CMDTXT) 	/* to delete command diagram text*/
DLTF FILE(Y1HLPTXT) 	/* to delete Help text */

Backup Requirements

There are several Toolkit objects whose data contents you are likely to change as a result of using the Toolkit utilities, and which therefore may require saving onto an off-line storage medium.

Backup Strategies

Here are four different approaches to backing up Toolkit.

1. Regularly save the entire library Y1SY:

   SAVLIB LIB(Y1SY)

   This would allow for recovery in a single step - but requires the unnecessary saving of objects that you have not changed.

2. Save only the items that you have changed since the last full save of the library:

   SAVCHGOBJ OBJ(*ALL) LIB(Y1SY) REFDATE(*SAVLIB)

   This is efficient, but requires two steps to recover: the restoration of the utilities, followed by the restoration of the changes.

3. Move any objects in Y1SY that require saving into other libraries that are already covered by your backup regime.
4. Explicitly save just those objects in Y1SY that require backing up.

If you adopt either of the last two approaches, you will need to bear in mind the backup considerations described below.

Backup Considerations

The Toolkit objects that might require saving can be divided into three categories:

• Design
• List
• System value

Design objects

The following table shows design objects:

List objects

The following table shows list objects:

System value objects

The following table shows system value objects:

Different considerations apply to each category of object:

Design objects: you are likely to have several different sets of the design files in different libraries, which will be saved as part of the back-up regimes for those libraries. You will probably keep at least one set of design files per application and it is quite possible that you will not actually keep any data in the versions of the design objects in the Y1SY library. The design files can be regarded as being similar in concept to source files such as QCLSRC and QRPGSRC - and similar considerations apply to using them.

List objects: most of the lists you use will probably be temporary ones stored in QTEMP. When you do create a permanent list you will probably want to create it in a named library other than Y1SY. Thus it is again quite possible that you will not keep any data in the versions of the list objects in the Y1SY library.

System parameter values: You will probably want to keep only one version of the objects containing system values. It may be very important that the objects, especially the library list and user profile file, are saved correctly and frequently. The system parameter objects are therefore prime candidates for either moving to a library that you already save regularly (e.g. QGPL), or for saving explicitly by means of the i OS Save changed objects command (SAVCHGOBJ).

Print Output

You may want to change the print file attributes for the print files in the Y1SY library, forms length, lines per inch, etc. This can be done for all files using the command Change Print File (CHGPRTF):

CHGPRTF FILE(Y1SY/*ALL) CPI(8) LPI(15)

Database File Descriptions

To find out the file descriptions of any of the Toolkit database files used by the Toolkit utilities, such as the user profile file (YUSRPRF), the menu file (YDSNMNU), or the library list file (YLIBLST), run the Toolkit Document File utility (YDOCF) on the file.

For example, to obtain the layout of the Toolkit user profile file:

YDOCF FILE(YUSRPRF)

International Character Set Considerations

Certain Toolkit commands involve the use of special characters, which may not be easily supported by your National language character sets. You may change the default special values used by some Toolkit commands.

CL Commands

There are seven commands in Toolkit which are intended mainly for internal use by Toolkit, but which may also be of use in your own CL programs. Refer to the respective command diagrams for further details. The commands are as follows:

• YRTVOBJLIB - A command to search the invoking job’s library list for a given object and return the library in which it resides
• YCVTBIN - A command to convert a binary number to a decimal number
• YCHKVN - A command to check whether a character string is a valid i OS system name.
• YCHKLIBLST - A command to check whether a library list exists in a given Toolkit library list file
• YCHKMNU - A command to check whether a menu exists in a given Toolkit menu file
• YCHKPNL - A command to check whether a panel design exists in a given Toolkit panel design file

YCHKRPT - A command to check whether a report design exists in a given Toolkit report design file