[Improvement] Session number/character in OIA if x3270 is connected to IBM i

[Dizzy-cz]

Hello,
I tried using s3270 for automate tasks on IBM i, and this works pretty well.

I thinking about starting to use x3270 instead of official IBM i Terminal Emulator (ACS), because I like some of other features of the x3270, like how much time system spent doing a task or history function. I don't mind suppord only 24x80 characters, but I miss session identification in Operator Information Area.
It's possible to add this into OIA or is this information lost/not present if 3270 terminal is used?

Best Regards, Lukas

On screenshot: ACS with session B and E and c3270 without session identification.

[pmattes]

Could you tell me a bit more about what 'session identification' is on a 5250 terminal? There is no such concept on a 3270, that I know of.

In TN3270/TN3270E, there is the notion of a Logical Unit, which c3270 does display, though it is on the right-hand side of the OIA rather than on the left. This is supplied by the host in either a TN3270E negotiation message or in an SNA BIND message. If the i Series host sends the 'session identification' to c3270 in this way, c3270 will display it.

[Dizzy-cz]

I'm digging into it a bit, I think I understand some of the basics more.

This are my findings, I could be easily complete wrong:
The session identification on The IBM Terminal Emulator (A,B,C,D etc in left side) is only on Terminal side and does not send this information to IBM i sever or so.
The terminal starts naming session from A to Z (and re-fill unused characters) and send Workstation ID with "=" at the end (Collision Avoidance ID) so Workstation ID will gets suffix from 0 to x (and re-fill unused numbers)
So you have "synced" Session A with workstation ID xxxx0, Session B with xxxx1 and so on. It's very useful in some cases.

I understand this can't be be done in same way in x3270/c3270/s3270, but what about displaying Workstation ID in OIA?
Is "Collision Avoidance ID" supported in the devname parameter?

[pmattes]

I can certainly look into displaying the RFC 4777 workstation ID in the OID, in the location usually used for the LU name, if no 3270 LU name is specified or returned by the host.

x3270 does not have support for collision avoidance IDs. But I can also look into implementing that, and displaying the one that finally worked in the OIA. If I understand correctly, if the workstation ID ends with one or more '=' characters, the emulator would replace those with a zero-padded number, starting with 0. If the host asks for the workstation ID again, the emulator would increment the number and send the new string. After all of the '=' characters were replaced by '9' characters, the emulator would give up and send all-nines again.

Does that sound reasonable?

The big issue here is time to implement it, but doesn't sound too difficult.

[Dizzy-cz]

Yes, I understand how "Collision Avoidance" works in the same way, my test with IBM terminal Emulator and IBM i server supports this understanding.

Your suggested implementation sounds great, even better that implementation the IBM Terminal Emulator. :)

I totally get it, It's just "nice to have" feature, nothing extra important. :)
I'm glad you took the time to even think about it.