The escape character in an AS-400 RPG program.

As you can see from the sample listing below, adding PCL commands to an RPG program is not difficult. The only important variable is the sequence of characters used by the device providing the connection from the AS-400 to the printer to represent the escape character referred to as <esc>. In this example, <esc> is activated by the sequence ¬E. Other common representations include &%1B&% and ¬e. See the table of known environments for specific command groups to produce the escape character.

Library: #TEST    Member: HPTST    S    Statement    23 of 31      Columns 1-80
                                                                         UPPER
0022 0**                                                                   HPTST
0023 0REPORT  E  201           HEADER                                      HPTST
0024 0                 U1                 3 'ªEE'                          HPTST
0025 0                 U2                 3 'ªE9'                          HPTST
0026 0                 U3                 6 'ªE&l0L'                       HPTST
0027 0                 U4                14 'ªE&f100YªE&f4X'               HPTST
0028 0        E  1             LINE                                        HPTST
0029 0                                   24  'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWX'    HPTST
0030 0                                   48  'YZ0123456789abcdefghijkl'    HPTST
0031 0                                   72  'mnopqrstuvwxyz!@#$%&*()+'    HPTST
0032 0                                   78  ' LINE '                      HPTST
0033 0                         X     Z   80                                HPTST
0028 0        E  1             FF                                          HPTST
0034 0                                    2 'ªF'                           HPTST
---------------------------  END OF LIBRARY MEMBER  ----------------------------

Please understand that this is the manual, low-cost, high-maintenance method of integration. Tools are available from a number of vendors for the AS-400 to facilitate smooth, easily-managed use of electronic forms.

For example, AS/400 utility programs exist that allow the operator to select the correct form for overlay from a list of available forms or form sets by name, from the command line. They also ease the implementation of complex printing operations such as duplexing, multipart forms, multiple-copy forms, and form collating or decollating.

For example, we can imagine, a multipart form implementation where each page of variable data from the application program is printed onto several different forms at once. This task is the equivalent of a three-part, tractor-fed, preprinted paper form being printed on a high-maintenance impact printer, but without the paper jams, bursting, decollating, etc.

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