ISERIES ADMINISTRATOR TIPS
Advanced trigger applications -- part 1
Ron Turull
03.27.2006
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Ron Turull
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The application of triggers to implement solutions for many data processing problems is limited by the imagination only. A trigger program can be attached to (or, associated with) any number of physical files using the ADDPFTRG command. You write the trigger program in the language of your choice. Once attached to a file, the program is called every time a record is deleted, inserted and/or updated.
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A trigger program is like any other program with a few restrictions on what it can do (we'll discuss these restrictions in the next installment). Since the system will be calling the trigger program, its parameter list must be strictly coded. Other than that, a trigger can do just about anything a typical program might. And, the same trigger program can be attached to multiple files and to the same file multiple times.
Six categories of triggers
The difference between the six types of triggers has to do with when they are cal...
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led. Three record I/O events cause triggers to be called -- deletion, insertion and update. A trigger can be configured either so it is called before or after the database carries out the I/O event. That produces the following six possible combinations:
1. Before delete
2. After delete
3. Before insert
4. After insert
5. Before update
6. After update
The trigger parameter list
Programs destined for trigger-hood must accept exactly two parameters. The first, an input buffer data structure, will contain all the information associated with the event that caused the trigger to be called. The second parameter, a four-byte integer, contains the length of the input buffer (i.e., the first parameter).
The chart below describes the layout of the input buffer parameter. Notice the last four fields of the input buffer structure. The offset, position, and length are not specified because it depends on the record length. Use the RPG SUBST op-code and the offset and length fields (positions 49-80 of the buffer) to extract the record images and null-byte maps. Note, SUBST requires a starting position not an offset, therefore, you must add a one to the offset to get a position. Alternatively, you can use pointers and based-on variables to make that process easier. When using pointers, you can use the offsets as-is to position the pointers to the proper place in the buffer.
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About the author: Ron Turull is editor of Inside Version 5. He has more than 20 years' experience programming for and managing AS/400-iSeries systems.
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