Converting RPG code to C# automatically?

What if you could take  your RPG programs and hey presto! have them converted into .NET and instantly sell your product to the rest of the world.   This would be a boon to AS/400 vendors locked into the small(ish) AS/400 market.   The advantage is that the original product is likely  a mature business proven system which can provide a critical edge against the deluge of competition once in the new windows space.  While  webfacing does provide a web front end to applications and is great for hosted models it does not help customers who are windows only and want windows only software.

Granted companies need to migrate on the competition level . However, all the supposed advantages such as performance, cost savings, availability of talent etc sounds hollow to long time AS/400 owners. Anecdotally we know that the uptime for the AS/400 is absolutely stunning compared to windows.  It's super stable and extremely reliable. At windows only shops instead of maintaining one iSeries server  and a handful of windows server you end  up maintaining 20-30 windows servers for a small organization.  But like I said, it's about getting your product out to a bigger market.
A big issue with migration products is that often your migrated solution will not be able to operate without them. Yikes! 

I'll be doing a review of these migration products once I get my hands on them but in the meantime here's an overview. Click the title to go to the product website.

TranSoft ML-Impact 
Well, the boys and girls at TranSoft claim that they can convert your old F-specs, c-specs to .NET .   I would love to see the code generated (post a sample  in comments pleez). They claim that CL and RPG will be converted to C#. Not only that they can take the DB2 tables and migrate them to SQL server. Not everything can be converted directly of course and the end result looks much like a 5250 application.
Without having the product available to me I can't give it the thumbs up or down  but if you have any experience with this tool, please drop a comment.

ADC Austin
Remember Synon? The hot product of 20 years ago is now trying to be cool.  They have jiggered a way to migrate from CA2E (Synon)  to Plex which uses .NET.   Sounds complicated. If you've tried it, drop me a line.

ASNA Monarch and AVR for .NET
ASNA monarch is a code converter that  creates RPG for .NET while AVR is a Visual Studio add-in that allows RPG  for .NET (an ASNA creation) development and compiles as a .net app.   Seems like these two products have the same product base.  The only feedback I've seen on this product is that there is no code completion, no automatic layout and ctl-z doesn't work.  Your comments pls.

Lansa Ramp and the rest
There are a bunch of other sticky migration tools out there that are designed to keep you using their applications. While the products above are somewhat sticky you can still migrate off them.  Products like the Lansa Ramp platform is a staged migration solution that requires you to develop a an application framework using their tools, prototype it, then recreate your screens in that framework. However the end product is a Lansa architecture that you have to stick with for the rest of eternity. 

Calling a program on an iSeries with .net

Here's an easy way to call a program on the AS/400 with .net. What's neat about this function is that it also accepts a return argument.

Requirements:

1. Client Access
   This method uses the Client Access library so you will need to have Client Access installed on your PC. Specifically you need cwbx.dll which is in the Iseries access folder C:\Program Files\IBM\Client Access\Shared
   Add this into your Visual Studio project as a reference
2. The host server on the iSeries must be started using STRHOSTSVR SERVER(*ALL)
   Copy the code below into Visual Studio
   
   
   
   using System;
   using System.Collections.Generic;
   using System.Text;
   using System.IO;
   using cwbx; // cwbx.dll is in the Iseries access folder C:\Program Files\IBM\Client Access\Shared
   // YOu must add it in to you project; Click on your references folder in solution explorer to add it in.
   
   namespace CallAS400pgm
   {
   class Program
   {
   
   
   static void Main(string[] args)
   {
   
   // Modify the following for your own iSeries
   
   string AS400Name = "192.168.0.1"; // Change this to the IP address of your machine
   string AS400User = "USER"; // User name to sign on to AS/400
   string AS400Password = "password"; // Password used to sign on to the AS/400
   string AS400Pgm = "DOTNET1"; //Name of program you wish to call on the AS/400
   string AS400Lib = "QGPL"; // Name of library where the program is located
   
   
   Console.WriteLine("Creating AS/400 object....");
   
   cwbx.AS400System AS400 = new cwbx.AS400SystemClass(); // creates an as/400 object
   cwbx.Program program = new cwbx.Program(); // Create a program object
   
   AS400.Define(AS400Name); // IP of AS/400
   
   program.system = AS400;
   program.system.UserID = AS400User; // Your user name
   program.system.Password = AS400Password; // Your password
   
   // define the name of the program you want to call on the iSeries
   program.LibraryName = AS400Lib; //Library where your program is located
   program.ProgramName = AS400Pgm; // Program that this app will call
   
   // NOTE: before you sign on, the host server on the iSeries must be started using STRHOSTSVR SERVER(*ALL)
   Console.WriteLine("Signing on to " + AS400Name);
   AS400.Signon();
   AS400.Connect(cwbcoServiceEnum.cwbcoServiceRemoteCmd);
   
   if (AS400.IsConnected(cwbcoServiceEnum.cwbcoServiceAll) == 0)
   {
   Console.WriteLine("Not connected");
   }
   else
   {
   ProgramParameters parms = new ProgramParameters(); // must create parameter collection
   // parms.Clear(); // if you have no parm use this statement
   
   // Define the parms you are sending and receiving from the iSeries pgm
   parms.Append("MsgToAS400", cwbrcParameterTypeEnum.cwbrcInput, 30); // // Input parm called 'MsgToAS400;
   parms.Append("ReplyFromAS400", cwbrcParameterTypeEnum.cwbrcOutput, 30); // create a parameter object name, type & length
   
   // puts a value into the parameter object
   StringConverter strcon = new StringConverterClass();
   strcon.Length = 30;
   parms["MsgToAS400"].Value = strcon.ToBytes(" This is from a dot net pgm, hi");
   
   
   try
   {
   Console.WriteLine("Sending a message to the iSeries....");
   
   Console.WriteLine("Calling program on the AS400....");
   program.Call(parms); // Runs until job is completed
   
   // Get the return value from the ISeries pgm
   
   String reply = strcon.FromBytes(parms["ReplyFromAS400"].Value);
   Console.WriteLine(reply);
   //This program dotnet1 is called on the iSeries. dotnet1 has 2 parameters
   // it takes the first and displays it to a user
   // it then sends back a message to this class in ReplyFromAS400
   
   Console.ReadLine();
   
   
   }
   catch (Exception e)
   {
   foreach (Error error in AS400.Errors)
   {
   Console.WriteLine(error.ToString());
   }
   
   throw;
   }
   
   }
   
   
   }
   }
   }