© Copyright 2006 by Robert Cozzi, Jr.
Jump to Downloading iSockets
iSockets is the no-charge service program that provides a light-weight interface for RPG IV programs to access web services easily and without a lot of overhead. iSockets is written entirely in RPG IV by Bob Cozzi and is provided for non-commercial use at no charge to the RPG IV World. There are other tools available that provide similar capabilities, but they have slightly more overhead and also add a level of complexity that is not found in iSockets, in our opinion.
iSockets may be used for your own in-house applications without charge. To use and distribute iSockets in commercial applications that are sold for a profit, a small, one-time license fee of $295 is required and it includes the source code. If you would like to purchase a license for the source code for iSockets (no support is provided) it is available for a one-time charge of $295. The source code is license only to a single Corporate entity and may not be distributed to any third-party. If these terms are agreeable to you, do either of the following:
This download is a zip file containing a save file that needs to be saved to your PC, unzipped, and then uploaded to your iSeries or i5. Use FTP or Client Access to transfer the file to an existing save file on your System i.
Stay up to date! Subscribe to iSockets RSS feed for automatic notification when updates are posted
iSockets Requires i5/OS (IBM "i") V5.3 or Later
A frozen, V5R1 legacy download is also available.
UPDATE: If you are not running IBM "i" v6.1 or later, you may need to add the following parameter to your RSTLIB command when installing iSockets:
RSTLIB ... FRCOBJCVN(*YES *RQD)The FRCOBJCVN parameter forces a re-create of the objects in iSockets so that they will work with your system. If you get a message at restore time "ISOCKETS *SRVPGM not restored" then this parameter may resolve that issue for you.
In addition, to restore iSockets on a pre-v6.1 system, one of the following PTFs is required:
Version/Release PTF Required v5r3m0 MF41354 v5r3m5 MF41734 v5r4m0 MF40520 v5r4m5 MF42655 Download iSockets
Download Help Text FAQ Revision History iSockets Help.chm
iSockets Help.zip
Note: The help file is also included in the iSockets.zip file along with the .savfModification Log Legacy Download for OS/400 V5R1
How to Upload/Install iSockets - Instructions
On the PC, after you have downloaded the iSockets.zip and unzipped it:
FTP QGPL/iSockets
BINARY
QUOTE SITE NAMEFMT 1
CD /QSYS.LIB/QGPL.LIB
LCD "C:\[directory where you downloaded iSockets.savf]
QUOTE RCMD CRTSAVF QGPL/ISOCKETS
PUT iSOCKETS.SAVF
QUITOn the Power System i:
RSTLIB SAVLIB(ISOCKETS) DEV(*SAVF) SAVF(QGPL/ISOCKETS)
How do you use iSockets from RPG IV?There is a pretty good overview of what programs that use iSockets can do, available here.
- Open a URL.
- Send the URL the data you need to provide.
- Receive the response back into your RPG IV program from the web services.
- Extract the piece of data from the response.
There are several examples included in the QRPGLESRC source file in the iSockets library.
Feel free to compile them and then experiment. A popular program is SNDTWEET which sends messages to a Twitter.com account.