Other New and Enhanced Activities

Other New and Enhanced Activities

In addition to the New SQL Database Activities, this version of LANSA Composer is supplied with a range of other new and revised Activities that deliver new and powerful capabilities:

New Activities

Revised Activities

 

New Activities

The following new Activities are added in this version of LANSA Composer:

• The new BASE64_ENCODE and BASE64_DECODE activities will base64 encode or decode the contents of a specified file and write the encoded or decoded content to another file.  Base64 encoding is commonly used when there is a need to encode binary data that needs to be stored and transferred over media or transports that are designed to deal with textual data. This is to ensure that the data remains intact without modification during transport.  Base64 encoding is commonly used in a number of applications including email via MIME, and storing complex data in XML.

• The new COUNTLIST activity counts the entries in a variable list used in a Processing Sequence.  Previously it would have been necessary to iterate the list entries with a LOOP directive in order to count the entries.

• The new DTAQ_CLEAR, DTAQ_RECEIVE and DTAQ_SEND activities provide support for sending and receiving data to and from IBM i data queues and to emulated data queues on Windows servers.

• The new FOR_EACH_OBJECT activity iterates for each object in an IBM i server library that matches a specified object name and/or object type.  The activity is only supported on IBM i servers.

• The new HASH_FILE activity generates a hash value of the contents of the specified file according to a known algorithm.  The hash value is a fixed-length (according to the chosen algorithm), non-reversible representation of the contents of the file.  Such hash values have many uses in information security, including as a means of detecting (accidental or intentional) changes to or corruption of the source data.

• The new JSM_RECLAIM activity reclaims LANSA Integrator JSM resources by initiating garbage collection in the JSM's Java Virtual Machine instance.  In some particular instances, a delay in garbage collection can lead to functional issues in subsequent processing when certain resources, such as files, might remain locked awaiting garbage collection of Java objects that reference them.  The JSM_RECLAIM activity may help to avoid issues of this nature.

• The new QUERY_CCSID activity returns the IBM i CCSID for a specified file.  The activity is only supported on IBM i servers.

• The new WATCH_DTAQ, WATCH_MSGQ and WATCH_DIRECTORY iterator activities provide a means of iteratively watching a data queue, message queue or a file system directory for new items (and/or changed or deleted items in the case of WATCH_DIRECTORY) for further processing.  The WATCH_MSGQ activity is only supported on IBM i servers.

• The new WAIT_FILESREADY activity is intended for use in processing sequences that identify and process newly-discovered files.  For example, a processing sequence that uses the new WATCH_DIRECTORY  activity may need to use this activity.  It provides file cache services designed to allow LANSA Composer solutions to control the processing of newly-discovered files to avoid contention issues with applications that may, for example, still be writing to a file when it is "discovered" by the LANSA Composer solution.

• The new XML_QUERY activity permits a LANSA Composer solution to selectively interrogate values contained in an XML document using XML Path Language (XPath) expressions.  The activity is intended for selective interrogation of a limited number of particular values from the XML document, perhaps to determine how to further process the XML document as a whole.

• The new XML_VALIDATE activity validates an XML document file.  At the minimum, the activity will verify that the XML document is well-formed.  If the XML document contains or references a DTD or an XML schema and the DTD or schema can be accessed, then the document content will be validated against the DTD or schema.

 

Revised Activities

Several previously supplied Activities have been revised to add functionality and/or to support other new and revised functionality in this version of LANSA Composer:

• The COPY_FILE, MOVE_FILE, RENAME_FILE and DELETE_FILE activities have been revised to provide more diagnostic information in the event of failure on IBM i servers.

• The COPY_FILE activity provides a new AUT parameter that specifies the method used to assign authority information to copied objects on IBM i servers.

• The DIRECTORY_LIST activity provides new CONTENT and MAXDEPTH parameters that allow it to list either sub-directories or files contained in the specified directory, and, optionally, to include the contents of child or descendant directories.

• The FTP configurations and the supplied FTP activities, such as FTP_INBOUND have been enhanced to provide support both for SSH compression and for SFTP public key authentication.

• The SMTP and POP3 configurations and the supplied email activities such as  MAIL_SEND and  MAIL_RECEIVE have been enhanced to provide support for explicit SSL/TLS.

• A new BACKIMAGEPATH and related parameters for the SPLF_TO_PDF activity permits a background image to be specified for inclusion in the generated PDF file.  The SPLF_TO_PDF activity is only supported on IBM i servers.

• A new DOCCCSID parameter for the SPLF_TO_TEXT activity permits the solution to specify the IBM i CCSID with which the output text document is created.  The SPLF_TO_TEXT activity is only supported on IBM i servers.

• The SYSTEM_COMMAND activity has been revised to provide more diagnostic information including captured joblog messages in the event the command execution is unsuccessful on IBM i servers.