I see many programmers asking about the proper hex codes to use to display colors in a 5250 session. Also, some people would like to use their own custom colors when commenting their source files. Here are two utilities for manipulating colors.

The first one is a command called COLOR that displays a screen (Figure 1) with all the possible color/column_separator/reverse_image combinations for easy reference. The code is in Figures 2-4.

The second is a command called COLORCOM, which will create a source file with one comment line using each of the color display codes (Figure 5). You can use this source member to copy the lines into a source member in which you wish to add colored comments. The command will let you specify the library/file and member you wish to create. If the member already exists, it will not replace it. I like to create it named "A" in the source file in which I am editing, so it appears first in the list when I prompt for copying in SEU. That code is in Figures 6-8.

Enjoy.

Figure 1: The COLOR command displays a screen with all the color options. (Click images to enlarge.)

Figure 2: The COLOR command source

Figure 3: COLOR display file

Figure 4: COLOR RPGLE program source

Figure 5: This is the source member created by COLORCOM. You can copy individual lines to your own member to have color comments.

Figure 6: COLORCOM command

Figure 7: CLP program COLORCOMC

Figure 8: RPGLE program COLORCOMR

Dan Stephens works for Rock-Tenn Company in Norcross, GA and has been working on IBM midrange computers since the System/36 days. Many of those years, he was writing middleware for programmer productivity and system management for the iSeries.