Controlling Collation Order On DB2/400

I recently had the need to control collation order on DB2/400.  Essentially I had a multi-column data grid on a web page and one of the columns contained data that was alphanumeric.  The data in the data grid was ordered on this column.  By default, on DB2/400 the collation order for sorting the table I was querying is determined by the hexadecimal EBCDIC value.  This caused letters to come before numbers like this:

Specifying the QAQQINI Library For the OLEDB IBMDA400 Provider

I recently needed to modify the IGNORE_DERIVED_INDEX setting in the QAQQINI file for my ASP.NET web site.  I didn't want the change I needed to affect any other applications though.  There doesn't seem to be much on the internet telling anyone how to do this, but I finally found a way to do it through the database connection string.

You can add a "QUERY OPTIONS FILE LIBRARY=mylibrary" section to your IBMDA400 connection string to specify the library from which the QAQQINI file should be read.  This allows you to have very granular control over which QAQQINI file is used for any particular database connection.  This allowed me to have a QAQQINI file specifically for my application.

You should be aware though that there was a bug preventing this from working in some versions.  You can read more about it here:

Consuming a RESTful Web Service Using HTTP POST from .NET

I recently had the need to consume a RESTful web service with .NET.  What made this less typical than most articles I found on the internet is that instead of retrieving data with the web service via an HTTP GET, I needed to send data with the web service via an HTTP POST.  I didn't see anyone doing that.

So this blog post is here for three purposes.  First, it is here to help others needing to call any RESTful web service from .NET using an HTTP POST.  Second, it is here so that next time I need to do it, I can find it quickly.  Third, anyone else needing to consume the specific Taxcient web service that I was consuming may find this a helpful starting point.

The web service I needed to call is hosted by a company named Taxcient.  Their web service allows me to pass customer data to it using an HTTP POST.  Here is the b ...

ASP.NET MVC

This is just a test.

Problems Caused by User Agent String Too Long

I recently had something happen to my machine that has caused me all sorts of havoc.  There are many symptoms of the same problem.  This all seems to have begun after a Windows security update (KB958687) was installed on my machine.  Interestingly, even after uninstalling that update, I still have the problem.  I haven't fully researched why that update caused this to happen, so maybe the update isn't exactly the culprit, but at this time, I believe it is.

Part of what made this so difficult to resolve is that there are so many symptoms of the problem.  With so many symptoms, there are many vectors to research that are so vague, it is difficult to isolate the actual problem.

I will begin with the symptoms I had in the order that may make it most easy to identify.

1.  The About box in Internet Explorer (IE, IE6, ...

- Solving the Problem No One Seems to Care About

I subtitled this post with the tongue-in-cheek phrase "Solving the Problem No One Seems to Care About" because I recently discovered what I would consider to be a flaw in the design of ASP.NET user controls, but I seem to be the only one who cares.

The flaw is that there is no HTML emitted for an ASP.NET user control.  Don't be mislead by my previous statement though.  Certainly the contents of the user control are emitted, but if your user control contains nothing, there will be no HTML emitted by it.  Here is some example ASP.NET markup for a page:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"  CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %& ...

As many times as I have googled DB2 and .NET topics and never recall a hit at this forum certainly qualifies it as a secret in my book:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=467

Since I have several posts on interfacing between .NET and the AS/400, and because this type of information is scarce on the internet, I often receive emails from people asking how to do certain things.  As I believe I have stated in every AS/400 related article I have posted, I actually know very little about the AS/400.  I just try to share the little bits that I do know.  Let this paragraph serve as my ongoing disclaimer concerning my AS/400 ignorance.

Recently, I received an email from James Wright asking about calling Stored Procedures on the AS/400.  He was attempting to use the cwbx.dll to call them, but was having trouble.  I informed him that I am not sure cwbx.dll can do that.  I am not saying that it cannot, just that I don't know that it can since I have never done it.  I recommended that instead he use either the ADO.NET DB2 native provider or one of the DB2 OleDb providers and try to call the DB2 stored p ...

In googling for AS/400 and cwbx.dll information, I see what appears to be a pattern of developers unable to find the documentation for the iSeries ActiveX Automation Objects, the API implemented in cwbx.dll.

If you have installed iSeries Access For Windows, it should be on your machine (I think).  In your IBM iSeries Access for Windows menu, select the Programmer's ToolKit/Programmer's ToolKit menu.  When the help system opens, click on the Program Call node.  Click on the ActiveX link for documentation for cwbx.dll.

There are also links in the Program Call node for C/C++ APIs and Java. I expect that these are equivalent APIs for those languages.