Is VB to AS/400 possible?

[moonbase]

I have an application written in VB 6.0 and have been asked about porting it to an AS/400 environment.
I guess one option would be run my application on an attached PC and connect to the data via ODBC.
Is practical to translate the code to a different language? (There is a small amount of user interface.)
Is there a package that can be used to run the VB?
Any suggestiuons/comments welcome.
Thanks

 

[ousoonerjoe]

I've worked with AS400 in the past. In every instance we used an ODBC connection to the 400. Business Objects and IBM both make a driver, but it's not free. As for translating the VB code to run on the AS400, I have never heard of such a beast.

"If I were to wake up with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am right now.

 

[avanderlaan]

I have a large number (> 20) of VB6 and C# applications connecting to an AS/400 using ADO/ADO.Net and the IBM driver. The connection is robust and performs well over a corporate network and a manufacturing floor subnet.

 

[BobRodes]

You'll want to investigate OLE DB Providers for AS/400. Both Microsoft and IBM make one. This method is preferable to the use of ODBC for many reasons, not the least of which is it's a lighter way to use ADO.

 

[moonbase]

Thanks, that's useful. I'll look into running my VB application and connecting via ADO/OLE DB or ODBC. As suggested, I'll check out the drawbacks with ODBC.

 

[BobRodes]

The main drawback with ODBC is that it's less flexible. If you want to see a fine example of that, investigate the use of ADO to manipulate non-relational data such as xml and text files, and then do the same with DAO.