Skip to Main Content
IBM Power Ideas Portal


This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM Power Systems products, including IBM i. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).


Shape the future of IBM!

We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:

Search existing ideas

Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,

Post your ideas
  1. Post an idea.

  2. Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.

  3. Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.

IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.

ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.

ADD A NEW IDEA

Languages - RPG

Showing 219 of 4482

Provide a CTL-OPT keyword to prohibit or issue a compiler warning when $ or @ are used in Variable or Procedure names

The use of $ and @ in variable names and procedure names in RPG IV hasn't been recommend in nearly 30 years. Yet we still see some legacy developers using those symbols for some reason. I'd like to see a compiler option or CTL-OPT keyword and eith...
11 months ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 1 Future consideration

Provide capability to restrict use of Global Variables in Subprocedures

Provide a capability to restrict access to global variables from local subprocedures. This could be done by adding a keyword to the dcl-proc specification that lists the global variables permitted for a given subprocedure. For example: dcl-proc My...
about 8 years ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 18 Future consideration

Add %FKEY Built-in Function to RPG IV

In RPG IV when working with Screens, we see programmers using *INKx response indicators, *INxx regular indicators, and the WSDS Pos(369) to determine which Fn key was pressed.RPG needs a built-in function, %FKEY() that allows users to test which k...
about 4 years ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 14 Not under consideration

Remove or Relaxe the error when %SUBST length exceeds length of data

The runtime for RPG currently blows up if %SUBST(var : START : LENGTH ) length value exceeds the length of the VAR or if it is 0.Provide an option to ignore this issue for runtime purposes. OPTION(*NOLENCHK) (No Length Check) which would cause run...
almost 3 years ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 10 Not under consideration

Add bit identifiers to DCL-DS subfields in RPG IV

I'd like to have the ability to declare a bit field in an RPG IV data structure. In the C language, you might have a structure like this: struct _Gen_IOP_T { /*Gen IOP breakdown structure for MATMATR*/ char Bus; /* Bus Number */ int Card : 4; /...
8 months ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 2 Future consideration

Provide a ?not in? operator.

Now that we have a conditional “in” operator, please provide a “not in” operator, that can be used wherever “in” can, eg, with %lists, %ranges, arrays, etc. Use Case: Currently, to check if the value of a field is not in a list (or range, etc), we...
about 3 years ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 2 Not under consideration

New BIF to test Parameter Length

Please introduce a new BIF (%parmlen) to get the length of a parmeter defined using OPTIONS(*VARSIZE) Use Case: To get the length of a parameter passed by reference *VARSIZE i have to code to use CEEDOD (prototype, parameters and the call itself)....
over 3 years ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 3 Future consideration

Allow %subarr() to be used in a logical expression.

%subarr() is useful in interactive programming to initialize many indicators at once. When initializing the screen, I can use %subarr() like this: %subarr( *in: 51: 5 ) = *all'0'; to turn off 5 indicators starting at 51. Checking several indicator...
4 months ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 1 Not under consideration

Enhance RPG IV RENAME F-spec keyword to support *EXTFMT or *RCDFMT

Please enhance the RPG IV File Spec RENAME (Rename Record Format) keyword so that a Developer can specify *ONLY or perhaps *RCDFMT or *EXTFMT (any are fine) so that the external format name need not be known at compile-time. Thus instead of RENAME...
3 months ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 3 Future consideration

Make %dec() 2nd & 3rd parm optional

The %dec() function should be able to detect the length and decimal positions of the target variable when converting from a character field. Use Case: Currently, when using the %dec() function to convert from a character field, you're forced to sp...
about 7 years ago in IBM i / Languages - RPG 6 Future consideration