AS400 Cobol File Sharing

Question

We want to add a load of records to an AS400 database file using COBOL several times a day. This file is also continually being updated and added to by 30 users through an online cobol screen, (albeit different records). My initial thought on this is one of horror, but is the File Sharing on the AS400 robust enough to handle this kind of multi threading, or does one task lock the file and release it when it has finished.

Answer 1

I'm an RPG programmer. I routinely have several hundred jobs adding, changing and deleting records from the same table all day long, for decades.

IBM i file sharing works very well - so well I never even think about it. There are a few tasks which require exclusive access to a file - backup & restore, for instance - but the sort of I/O that application programs perform works quite well with the typical 'shared update' access.

Answer 2

The COBOL application might lock records it has read until they are updated or released, or if processing under commitment control, until a commit or rollback.