Text description for IFS stream files

[rishabkaushik]

I was looking to display text descriptions for IFS streamfiles but I believe the functionality does not exist. On investigating the extension source code, found that stat command is being used to fetch the listing for the contents of a directory. This in my opinion is alright as stat does not provide a way to retrieve text description.

What I am trying to suggest here is to implement the text description for streamfiles. One suggestion is to use IFS_OBJECT_STATISTICS table function either on a directory or on a streamfile. I prefer the former approach. The text can be put into a dictionary/json object with filename as the key.

If this is not possible for you, I understand and would like to do it myself. Do let me know if this is a good idea.

vscode-ibmi/src/api/IBMiContent.ts

Lines 797 to 802 in 6eef538

	if (STAT && SORT) {
	fileListResult = (await this.ibmi.sendCommand({
	command: `cd '${remotePath}' && ${STAT} --dereference --printf="%A\t%h\t%U\t%G\t%s\t%Y\t%n\n" * .* ${sort.order === `date` ? `| ${SORT} --key=6` : ``} ${(sort.order === `date` && !sort.ascending) ? ` --reverse` : ``}`
	}));

Thanks

[chrjorgensen]

@rishabkaushik I researched this idea some years ago - to use the TEXT description on IFS objects ( from CHGATR ATR(*TEXT) TEXT('some text')).

However, I found that the text attribute is not supported by the attr PASE command. The attribute is platform specific and lost when copying the file to and from other platforms or even copying locally on the IBM i with PASE or QSHELL cp, And git does not save the attribute, and it would be lost at checkout!

I decided it was a bad idea and not worth the effort. This attribute is too platform specific, and I would advice to use it only on static files only used on IBM i.

[rishabkaushik]

@chrjorgensen Thanks for your explanation.

This does make sense to me now. So it's better to use ctl-opt or %TEXT for the description. Will it be a good enhancement to show the description if it is in either of the places? I agree it would be cumbersome to read each streamfile contents and parse the description from it. I am asking just for curiosity purposes but there can be situations where programs are not verbosely named.

[chrjorgensen]

@rishabkaushik We use ctl-opt text() in RPGLE sources and dclprcopt text() in CLLE sources. For CMD sources we use cmd 'text' text(*cmdpmt). Any other source have a CHGOBJD TEXT() build instruction in the source. This works great for us and maybe for other too.

Having to open each streamfile shown in the IFS browser, just to show some text, is way too expensive! I think that having it in the source and having to open the source to see it, is fine - fortunately IBM i now stores the streamfile used for compile in the generated program objects, so it's easier to find the correct source if there's an issue with the text.

[rishabkaushik]

@chrjorgensen Thank you for the nice explanation and making the development on IBM i exciting again!