Using SQL on System i to color source code and inline comments

For all those programmers using emulators other than Client Access (and other similar advanced emulators), you can color your source code/inline comments using SQL. The color codes for some are as given below:

Red X'28'
White X'22'
Blue X'3A'
Pink X'38'
Turquoise X'34'

Code:

In SQL/400, create an alias of the source member you want to color in QTEMP. If I want to color source member PGM1 in QRPGSRC my SQL statement would be something like:

Query 1: CREATE ALIAS QTEMP/ALIAS# FOR LIB/QRPGSRC (PGM1)

The alias would enable us to access different members of file using SQL.

Query 2: UPDATE QTEMP/ALIAS# SET SRCDTA = SUBSTR(SRCDTA,1,4)||X'22'||SUBSTR(SRCDTA,6,94) WHERE SUBSTR(SRCDTA,7,1) = '*'

We are updating the source line by including hex color code in sixth byte of the source.

This query would change the color of all comment line to white.

Condition your query as you like based on any field SRCDTA, SRCSEQ, SRCDAT.

Query 3: DROP ALIAS QTEMP/ALIAS#

This drops the alias file created in QTEMP.

The table of valid hex values for display colors is shown below:

Hex	Color
20	Green
21	Green, reverse image
22	White
23	White, reverse image
24	Green, underscore
25	Green, underscore, reverse image
26	White, underscore
27	Nondisplay
28	Red
29	Red, reverse image
2A	Red, high intensity
2B	Red, high intensity, reverse image
2C	Red, underscore
2D	Red, underscore, reverse image
2E	Red, underscore, blink
2F	Nondisplay
30	Turquoise, column separator
31	Turquoise, column separator, reverse image
32	Yellow, column separator
33	White, reverse image, column separator
34	Turquoise, underscore, column separator
35	Turquoise, underscore, reverse image, column separator
36	Yellow, underscore, column separator
37	Nondisplay
38	Pink
39	Pink, reverse image
3A	Blue
3B	Blue, reverse image
3C	Pink, underscore
3D	Pink, underscore, reverse image
3E	Blue, underscore
3F	Nondisplay

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