[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > John, > > Problem is we need the spreadsheet to recalculate itself, using a number of > input parameters, each time it is requested. The spreadsheet itself > actually goes off and retrieves some data, I think using ODBC.
I've done this type of thing before. The thing you need to avoid is tying up your webserver (and the browser) while the spreadsheet is being prepared. The Excel doc I was working with had 10 sheets, each one being a rollup of the one previous plus perhaps some other data points, and thousands of rows of data on the first sheet coming from automation of a proprietary software package. The data acquisition was extremely slow, and once we had the data the OLE automation of Excel did a great job but it was very slow too. So... the basic steps are: 1) webserver receives the request for spreadsheet x with parameters m and n. 2) webserver redirects to the name of the output excel html file, which hasn't been processed yet, so the contents of that file is a simple html that says "Processing your spreadsheet, please be patient...". This page automatically refreshes every 10 seconds or so. 3) webserver communicates with a different service set up to handle these excel requests and place the output in the given filename. At this point, the webserver's job is done, other than to simply hand over the static file when the client requests it. 4) Have a different process run once a day to clear out these temporary files after they've been there more than 24 hours. I've done a variation on this where the user is emailed with the excel sheet attached. Both variations worked well. HTH -- pkm ~ http://paulmcnett.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
