Re: [PHP] Returning a recordset to a desktop app
On 3/7/2011 7:19 AM, Richard Quadling wrote: On 5 March 2011 13:48, Ken Watkins k...@atlanticbb.net wrote: On 3/5/2011 4:30 AM, Richard Quadling wrote: On 4 March 2011 23:48, Ken Watkins k...@atlanticbb.net wrote: Hi All. I have a Windows desktop app that I created using Visual Foxpro (a database app). I want to write a PHP script that I will call from my desktop app. The script will simply query a MySQL database on my web server and return the recordset to the desktop app. My question is simply this: What is the preferred method for passing this recordset back to the desktop app? I'm assuming that there's no reasonable way to send a recordset back without converting it to an array or XML or an object or something? How do I return the data in the recordset to the desktop app? Thanks for your advice. Ken Watkins In general terms, the output of a PHP script is going to be text (html, xml, csv, etc.) or binary (images). Getting a PHP script to communicate natively with FoxPro is not going to be trivial task. It MAY be able to be done, but hopefully FoxPro has the capability of running a PHP script via the command line ... C:\PHP5\php.exe -f script.php -- script_arg1 script_arg2 PHP can either output the result set (in an appropriate form) directly and FoxPro could read it from STDIN (if it has that support) or PHP can write the answer to a file and FoxPro can use normal file and string functions to read the data. If FoxPro has XML support, then use it. It will be much cleaner in the long run if the data changes. If not, then a tab separated data file (rather than a CSV file). This assumes that your data does not contain tabs. If so, choose another separator. Richard. Richard, Foxpro does have XML support, so you answered that part of my question, thanks. And it is capable of calling any other executable on the local machine through the local OS shell - which seems to be what you are advocating. But I'm not sure how I would do that over the internet. I just discussed this issue with Larry, and I assume that I would use HTTP? Or is there a way to call a command line script on a remote web server without using HTTP? Sorry if this is a stupid question. Thanks for your help! Ken So, what you need to have is an HTTP Request from within FoxPro. http://www.example-code.com/foxpro/http_post_form.asp gives an example, but it seems to use a third party ActiveX component. If FoxPro can load any locally resident/installed ActiveX component, then maybe ... http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~ReadUrl has better examples. So, using something from that to get the data (XML) and then using FoxPro's native support for XML and you should be on your way. But at this stage, I'd be looking to ask for further help in a FoxPro forum as this is really nothing to do with PHP. Good luck. Richard. Richard, Thanks for your comments. I ended up taking the simple approach - I installed an ODBC driver for MySQL and let Foxpro query the database directly from a remote workstation. I suppose that what I wanted to do originally was to introduce PHP into the mix just to have another option, and to gain more experience in PHP. Probably not a good idea anyway. Thanks again for the help. Ken Watkins -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Returning a recordset to a desktop app
On 5 March 2011 13:48, Ken Watkins k...@atlanticbb.net wrote: On 3/5/2011 4:30 AM, Richard Quadling wrote: On 4 March 2011 23:48, Ken Watkins k...@atlanticbb.net wrote: Hi All. I have a Windows desktop app that I created using Visual Foxpro (a database app). I want to write a PHP script that I will call from my desktop app. The script will simply query a MySQL database on my web server and return the recordset to the desktop app. My question is simply this: What is the preferred method for passing this recordset back to the desktop app? I'm assuming that there's no reasonable way to send a recordset back without converting it to an array or XML or an object or something? How do I return the data in the recordset to the desktop app? Thanks for your advice. Ken Watkins In general terms, the output of a PHP script is going to be text (html, xml, csv, etc.) or binary (images). Getting a PHP script to communicate natively with FoxPro is not going to be trivial task. It MAY be able to be done, but hopefully FoxPro has the capability of running a PHP script via the command line ... C:\PHP5\php.exe -f script.php -- script_arg1 script_arg2 PHP can either output the result set (in an appropriate form) directly and FoxPro could read it from STDIN (if it has that support) or PHP can write the answer to a file and FoxPro can use normal file and string functions to read the data. If FoxPro has XML support, then use it. It will be much cleaner in the long run if the data changes. If not, then a tab separated data file (rather than a CSV file). This assumes that your data does not contain tabs. If so, choose another separator. Richard. Richard, Foxpro does have XML support, so you answered that part of my question, thanks. And it is capable of calling any other executable on the local machine through the local OS shell - which seems to be what you are advocating. But I'm not sure how I would do that over the internet. I just discussed this issue with Larry, and I assume that I would use HTTP? Or is there a way to call a command line script on a remote web server without using HTTP? Sorry if this is a stupid question. Thanks for your help! Ken So, what you need to have is an HTTP Request from within FoxPro. http://www.example-code.com/foxpro/http_post_form.asp gives an example, but it seems to use a third party ActiveX component. If FoxPro can load any locally resident/installed ActiveX component, then maybe ... http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~ReadUrl has better examples. So, using something from that to get the data (XML) and then using FoxPro's native support for XML and you should be on your way. But at this stage, I'd be looking to ask for further help in a FoxPro forum as this is really nothing to do with PHP. Good luck. Richard. -- Richard Quadling Twitter : EE : Zend @RQuadling : e-e.com/M_248814.html : bit.ly/9O8vFY -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Returning a recordset to a desktop app
On 4 March 2011 23:48, Ken Watkins k...@atlanticbb.net wrote: Hi All. I have a Windows desktop app that I created using Visual Foxpro (a database app). I want to write a PHP script that I will call from my desktop app. The script will simply query a MySQL database on my web server and return the recordset to the desktop app. My question is simply this: What is the preferred method for passing this recordset back to the desktop app? I'm assuming that there's no reasonable way to send a recordset back without converting it to an array or XML or an object or something? How do I return the data in the recordset to the desktop app? Thanks for your advice. Ken Watkins In general terms, the output of a PHP script is going to be text (html, xml, csv, etc.) or binary (images). Getting a PHP script to communicate natively with FoxPro is not going to be trivial task. It MAY be able to be done, but hopefully FoxPro has the capability of running a PHP script via the command line ... C:\PHP5\php.exe -f script.php -- script_arg1 script_arg2 PHP can either output the result set (in an appropriate form) directly and FoxPro could read it from STDIN (if it has that support) or PHP can write the answer to a file and FoxPro can use normal file and string functions to read the data. If FoxPro has XML support, then use it. It will be much cleaner in the long run if the data changes. If not, then a tab separated data file (rather than a CSV file). This assumes that your data does not contain tabs. If so, choose another separator. Richard. -- Richard Quadling Twitter : EE : Zend @RQuadling : e-e.com/M_248814.html : bit.ly/9O8vFY -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Returning a recordset to a desktop app
Larry, Yes, the PHP script will reside on my web server along with the MySQL database. I assumed that I would call the script over HTTP, but I guess that is part of my question too. Foxpro allows you to embed controls in its forms, and one of them is a browser control. But I don't really want to echo anything to the enduser, I just want to capture the data behind the scenes, so to speak. I think I can handle that with the browser control. If I understand you correctly, when I do an echo statement or a print statement (or a return()?), it will return the data to the desktop app. And the best way to return it is in xml. I'll investigate the methods you mention for converting xml since I'm not familiar with any of them. Thanks! Ken On 3/4/2011 6:51 PM, la...@garfieldtech.com wrote: Assuming you mean that the PHP script is on a web server somewhere and the desktop app is hitting it over HTTP, it's no different than any other response. Anything you print will be sent back to the client, in this case your desktop a.. So if you want to send XML back, you'd build a string with your XML (either manually or using the DOM or SimpleXML APIs or a 3rd party like QueryPath or whatever floats your boat) and print it, just as you would HTML. Note that you may need to explicitly set headers with header() to make sure the desktop app reads it properly. --Larry Garfield On 3/4/11 5:48 PM, Ken Watkins wrote: Hi All. I have a Windows desktop app that I created using Visual Foxpro (a database app). I want to write a PHP script that I will call from my desktop app. The script will simply query a MySQL database on my web server and return the recordset to the desktop app. My question is simply this: What is the preferred method for passing this recordset back to the desktop app? I'm assuming that there's no reasonable way to send a recordset back without converting it to an array or XML or an object or something? How do I return the data in the recordset to the desktop app? Thanks for your advice. Ken Watkins -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Returning a recordset to a desktop app
On 3/5/2011 4:30 AM, Richard Quadling wrote: On 4 March 2011 23:48, Ken Watkins k...@atlanticbb.net wrote: Hi All. I have a Windows desktop app that I created using Visual Foxpro (a database app). I want to write a PHP script that I will call from my desktop app. The script will simply query a MySQL database on my web server and return the recordset to the desktop app. My question is simply this: What is the preferred method for passing this recordset back to the desktop app? I'm assuming that there's no reasonable way to send a recordset back without converting it to an array or XML or an object or something? How do I return the data in the recordset to the desktop app? Thanks for your advice. Ken Watkins In general terms, the output of a PHP script is going to be text (html, xml, csv, etc.) or binary (images). Getting a PHP script to communicate natively with FoxPro is not going to be trivial task. It MAY be able to be done, but hopefully FoxPro has the capability of running a PHP script via the command line ... C:\PHP5\php.exe -f script.php -- script_arg1 script_arg2 PHP can either output the result set (in an appropriate form) directly and FoxPro could read it from STDIN (if it has that support) or PHP can write the answer to a file and FoxPro can use normal file and string functions to read the data. If FoxPro has XML support, then use it. It will be much cleaner in the long run if the data changes. If not, then a tab separated data file (rather than a CSV file). This assumes that your data does not contain tabs. If so, choose another separator. Richard. Richard, Foxpro does have XML support, so you answered that part of my question, thanks. And it is capable of calling any other executable on the local machine through the local OS shell - which seems to be what you are advocating. But I'm not sure how I would do that over the internet. I just discussed this issue with Larry, and I assume that I would use HTTP? Or is there a way to call a command line script on a remote web server without using HTTP? Sorry if this is a stupid question. Thanks for your help! Ken -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
[PHP] Returning a recordset to a desktop app
Hi All. I have a Windows desktop app that I created using Visual Foxpro (a database app). I want to write a PHP script that I will call from my desktop app. The script will simply query a MySQL database on my web server and return the recordset to the desktop app. My question is simply this: What is the preferred method for passing this recordset back to the desktop app? I'm assuming that there's no reasonable way to send a recordset back without converting it to an array or XML or an object or something? How do I return the data in the recordset to the desktop app? Thanks for your advice. Ken Watkins -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Returning a recordset to a desktop app
Assuming you mean that the PHP script is on a web server somewhere and the desktop app is hitting it over HTTP, it's no different than any other response. Anything you print will be sent back to the client, in this case your desktop a.. So if you want to send XML back, you'd build a string with your XML (either manually or using the DOM or SimpleXML APIs or a 3rd party like QueryPath or whatever floats your boat) and print it, just as you would HTML. Note that you may need to explicitly set headers with header() to make sure the desktop app reads it properly. --Larry Garfield On 3/4/11 5:48 PM, Ken Watkins wrote: Hi All. I have a Windows desktop app that I created using Visual Foxpro (a database app). I want to write a PHP script that I will call from my desktop app. The script will simply query a MySQL database on my web server and return the recordset to the desktop app. My question is simply this: What is the preferred method for passing this recordset back to the desktop app? I'm assuming that there's no reasonable way to send a recordset back without converting it to an array or XML or an object or something? How do I return the data in the recordset to the desktop app? Thanks for your advice. Ken Watkins -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
