Search all spool files in a output queue

Thanks for your input. IBM will use this Idea as input to planning, but no commitment is made or implied. This Idea will be updated in the future if IBM implements it. IBM will use votes and comments from others in the community to help prioritize this Idea.
IBM Power Systems Development

Another approach would be to leverage the power of IBM SQL service.

This will not give you the whole spool file to read, but will give you the name, spool file number and the row and row number where the search string match, just replace MY_LIB, MY_OUTQ, my_search_string and the time fram you want to search:

select O.CREATE_TIMESTAMP,

O.JOB_NAME,

O.SPOOLED_FILE_NAME,

O.FILE_NUMBER,

O.USER_DATA,

S.ORDINAL_POSITION,

S.SPOOLED_DATA

from table (

QSYS2.OUTPUT_QUEUE_ENTRIES('MY_LIB', 'MY_OUTQ', 'NO')

) O,

lateral (

select ORDINAL_POSITION,

SPOOLED_DATA

from table (

SYSTOOLS.SPOOLED_FILE_DATA(

JOB_NAME => O.JOB_NAME, SPOOLED_FILE_NAME => O.SPOOLED_FILE_NAME,

SPOOLED_FILE_NUMBER => O.FILE_NUMBER)

)

) S

where S.SPOOLED_DATA like '%my_search_string%'

and O.CREATE_TIMESTAMP between

'2023-05-08 20:21:00.000000' and '2023-05-10 20:00:00.000000';

Thank you for submitting your Idea to enhance IBM i Access Client Solutions (ACS). The easiest way to accomplish what you need today would be to use ACS to download the spool files you would like to search to a specific folder. Then use a platform specific search facility to search the files. For example, on Windows you could do the following:
1. Open File Explorer.
2. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the spool files.
3. Click inside the search bar next to the location bar.
4. Enter an item you want to find and then Enter.
5. File Explorer will show you the files it found with that item.

While we understand the value of your Idea, since there is already a reasonable solution available, we do not plan on implementing this Idea at this time.
IBM Power Systems Development

Hello, did you try the dedicated API List Spooled Files (QUSLSPL) API ?

here is some RPGLE code from my own utility to cleanup old spool files

//‚List Spooled Files (QUSLSPL) API

d quslspl pr extpgm('QUSLSPL')

d user_space 20 const

d Format 8 const

d UserName 10 const

d OutqName 20 const

d FormType 10 const

d UserData 10 const

//‚Optional Parameter Group 1:

d Error_Code 256 options(*nopass:*varsize)

//‚Optional Parameter Group 2

d JobName 26 options(*nopass) const

d Key 10i 0 options(*nopass) const

d keyCount 10i 0 options(*nopass) const

//‚Optional Parameter Group 3:

d ASP 10i 0 options(*nopass) const

//‚Optional Parameter Group 4:

d JobSysName 8 options(*nopass) const

d StrSplCrtDat 7 options(*nopass) const

d StrSplCrtTim 8 options(*nopass) const

d EndSplCrtDat 7 options(*nopass) const

d EndSplCrtTim 8 options(*nopass) const

//‚Optional Parameter Group 5:

d ASPdevice 10 options(*nopass) const

D SPLF0300 ds 136 qualified based(pSplf0300)

d Job_name 10

d User_name 10

d Job_number 6

d Spool_name 10

d Spool_number 10i 0

d Spool_status 10i 0

d Date_created 7

d Time_created 6

d Spool_schedule 1

d Spool_sys_name 10

d User_data 10

d Form_type 10

d OutQ_Name 10

d OutQ_lib 10

d ASP 10i 0

d Size 10i 0

d sizemultiplier 10i 0

d Total_pages 10i 0

d Copies_to_prod 10i 0

d Priority 1

d Reserved 3

d IPP_jobid 10i 0

full code and explanations at my public site (free code) http://jplamontre.free.fr/AS400/CLNSPL.htm