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TechTip: Using Your iSeries as a Mail Client

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Recently, someone asked me about using the iSeries to re-process and report on "undeliverable" email. He was sending out a lot of email using the QtmmSendMail API and the SMTP server in OS/400 (i5/OS if you are keeping up). The problem was that email messages that were returned as "undeliverable" were being ignored because the email messages were being retrieved by one of the PC-based mail clients (Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, etc.). The obvious answer is to retrieve the messages to the iSeries and handle them from there.

The simplest way to accomplish this is to use the QRYDST and RCVDST commands. Until my friend set me on a course to determine how to process email on the AS/400 or iSeries, I was unfamiliar with the QRYDST command. Also, I had only used the RCVDST command for receiving files that had been sent using SNDDST (generally, *SAVF files or spooled files). Imagine my surprise when I found that these two commands easily provide the foundation for a simple email client.

The first order of business in retrieving email is to get the list of the available email messages. The QRYDST command allows you to retrieve all the incoming email either for a specific user ID or for any users that the current user has been given authority to. For our purposes, we will stick to retrieving email for a single user.

The IBM iSeries Information Center offers some documentation about using SNADS to receive email, but it's not clear on the format of the information that the QRYDST command retrieves. You have to dig into the QRYDST command documentation to discover that library QSYS contains two files, QAOSILIN and QAOSILOT. These files are the templates for the output from the QRYDST and RCVDST commands. Once you have this information, the IBM documentation for receiving emails using QSNADS makes much more sense. The following command retrieves the list of email messages for user ID JOLEN to a file called MAILLIST in library JEFFO.

QRYDST USRID(JOLEN DEV40001) OUTFILE(JEFFO/MAILLIST)


Once the list of email messages is retrieved into a file using the QRYDST command, you will use the distribution identifier (field LINDID from the QAOSILIN template) and the RCVDST command to retrieve the specific email messages. IBM has provided a template file in QSYS called QAOSIRCV that shows the format of the RCVDST output file. The following command will retrieve a specific email message identified by the distribution ID into the file MAILMSGTMP in library JEFFO.

RCVDST DSTID('QTCP    QTCP    0068') USRID(JOLEN DEV40001)       OUTFILE(JEFFO/MAILMSGTMP)                                                                        


The IBM RCVDST documentation in the Information Center gives good details on the contents of the email messages. From there, it's up to you, the developer. Really, you could write a simple application to re-process and report on any undeliverable email either from the email list from QRYDST or from the actual message retrieved by RCVDST. Have fun!

Jeff Olen is a Software Engineer on the iSeries R&D team at Open Text Corporation in Irvine, California. He has over 15 years of development experience on midrange systems and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Jeff Olen

Jeff Olen is a super-spy now but keeps his cover identity intact by working for video game studios on the East Coast. So when he’s not out killing members of ISIS or rescuing refugees, you can find him playing Wolfenstein II or testing the new Fallout 76 releases at his beach house in Costa Rica. In any case, he can’t be reached. You can email his cat at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. She will pass on your message…if she feels like it.


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