RE: Communicating with COM objects from iSeries via Java?

[James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005, JK wrote:

> James: I recall reading your posts while you were developing the Hylafax
> solution - glad it worked so well for you - it was what triggered me to
> think of the WinFax possibility in the first place. Our shop hasn't ventured
> into linux-land yet and it may be a hard sell to get approval. The Hylafax
> link below specifically mentions an AS/400 client - was that your project?
> Question: how did you handle the fax log, i.e.: confirming fax receipts? Our
> management is obsessive about receipt confirmations...
> http://www.hylafax.org/howto/faxing.html#ss5.7
You may want to start experimenting with linux.  Learning some unix skills 
can be nothing but good.  If no one at your place has any unix experience, 
then go slowly at first.  Hylafax is a good service to start experimenting 
with and there is a *very* nice windows client for it called HylaFSP (not 
free though).  Once you have spent some time on linux and figured out how 
it will best fit into your organization you will probably have an easier 
time convincing those in charge to approve it.
The hylafax client solution for iSeries mentioned on the web site is not 
the one we came up with.  I have talked with the hylafax people about 
posting our solution on their site and they agreed to once I got my act 
together and sent it to them.  So they are waiting on me :)  But 
fortunately I just posted it to our website.  Here is a link to it:
http://www.eaerich.com/hylafax/HylaFaxInterface.java

This wrapper expects the gnu.hylafax package to be installed in 
/usr/lib/java which is easily accomplished by untarring the gnu.hylafax 
tarball from QSH.  Put this java code in a suitable place (I put it in 
/home/james/java/com/eaerich/hylafax/) and invoke the java compiler as 
noted in the source.  Then set your CLASSPATH appropriately before running 
your RPG program and you can call it using the code I posted earlier.
As for confirmation messages, hylafax sends out a confirmation message via 
email.  Using our little java wrapper, you can tell hylafax what email 
address the confirmation messages should be sent to.  For those users 
without email we have it send to to their supervisor's email address.  If 
there is a problem with the hylafax interface itself the java wrapper 
returns a string describing what went wrong.
James Rich

It's not the software that's free; it's you.
        - billyskank on Groklaw