How to use JTOpen in .Net environment to develop client IBM i in Microsoft .Net programming language

JTOpen, the .Net client development dll for IBM i

IBM i and .Net, it can be done

We have long been accustomed to reading, studying, developing and applying applications for IBM i written in the various languages supported by the operating system such as Java, C, C ++, Cobol, RPG on our work. But what if we wanted to develop something for IBM i using the very popular microsoft .Net framework? One would say that it is not possible and instead ...

IBM i and its opening to the outside IT world

IBM's operating system has long been open to the outside IT world, a feature that has allowed it to remain strong on the market and at the center of the business of many companies. IBM i natively supports programs written in different programming languages, but, thanks to its openness to the IT world, it can be interfaced with external applications that will run on microsoft, linux, unix environments

JTOpen the java open package

Are there any packages that help us develop applications that can interface with the structure and system components of an IBM i?

We often use the client developed by IBM and called Access Client, a product that can run on windows and linux simply by using the java virtual machine on the system. It is in fact a product written in java that helps in the management and control of the IBM i system. If we wanted to write a software in java that can easily interact with the IBM i system, we would just need to download this package from sourceforge and study the classes and the many examples that can be found on the web https://sourceforge.net/p/jt400/wiki/Home/

At the time of writing this article we find version 11.0 with the relative documentation of all the java classes contained in it

JTOpen for .Net environment

what if we wanted to write this software in C# and not in java?

Here comes the IKVM package, a java to .Net class converter. The IKVM project can be found here https://github.com/ikvm-revived/ikvm but, of course, you can download it directly from Visual Studio using the NuGet packages. Here are the steps to download IKVM

I open a new Visual Studio project

I go into the NuGet package manager

I search and install the IKVM package

In the packages folder of my Visual Studio project I will find the folder related to IKVM and all its files

Creation of a folder with all the components necessary for the conversion from .jar to .Net

I create a new folder called for example "JTOpenDLL" and copy the following files into it

...\jtopen_11_0\lib\jt400.jar

...\packages\IKVM.8.2.0\bin\ikvmc\net461\any\ and copy the files highlighted in yellow here

...\\packages\IKVM.8.2.0\lib\net461\ and copy the files highlighted in yellow here

So I find the folder "JTOpenDLL" done like this

In this folder I execute the command ikvmc.exe -out: jt400.dll jt400.jar and I get the dll that I can use in my Visual Studio project

I move all the files of my new folder into the Visual Studio project folder ...\bin\Debug\

I add the jt400.dll between the references of my Visual Studio project

The project is ready

With the previous operations you are ready to develop the first IBM i systems management projects starting from windows server and writing in one of the .Net languages

Soon we will see some small examples of how to do C# development for IBM i systems Marco Moret Monitoring Project Manager at smeup ICS
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