Opening a ASP page with POST from a VB programm

**GAteKeeper** · 06-01-2005, 03:21 AM

I have an Access dB that needs to open a web page passing some things:

Oracle Login
At least 1 ID

Now I could write a down and dirty way of doing this buy creating an html page on the fly with a bit of java script that auto submits on open and opening it in the default browser. But this is not the best situation as the username/password would exist as files on the HDD (if only for a short space of time).

Is there a nice way of creating a VB object with the POST & ACTION statements set and then opening it in IE.

I am a fairly good programmer (I get paid to do so cant be too bad) and willing to try most ideas out.

GAteKeeper

**Stoo** · 06-01-2005, 04:04 PM

Start from the beginning, what exactly are you trying to do?

You're not making an awful lot of sense in the above post..

**GAteKeeper** · 06-01-2005, 04:42 PM

Ok, I have an access database hooked into an oracle backend. Its used to infrequently maintain a list of courses.

The rest of the system is written in ASP VBScript. I need to be able to have a button in my system that opens a web browser and automatically logins into the correct page passing the ID of the currently selected course so the user can look at the budgets based on that course. The login is an oracle login maintained across the systems.

I can open a web browser no problem but for obvious reasons (like the username and password would be totally visible) we dont want to use the GET method of passing variables to the web page. Instead I want to use hte POST method.

So I need to create a VB object add some parameters and open it (if this sort of VB object even exists)

Hope this clarifies my question.

GAteKeeper

**malfunction** · 06-01-2005, 04:53 PM

So access is only used as a GUI? And oracle is 'accessed' via an ODBC DSN?

Also - why not just make all the GUI stuff the webpage?

FWIW you can do this in VBScript - not sure if it's the same in VBA (which is what I presume you are using):

Code:

Function httpGet(url)
	Set objHttpReq = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
	
	objHttpReq.Open "GET", url, false
	objHttpReq.Send

	httpGet = objHttpReq.ResponseText
End Function

Function httpPost(url, postdata)
	Set objHttpReq = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
	
	objHttpReq.Open "PUT", url, false
	objHttpReq.Send postdata

	httpPost = objHttpReq.ResponseText
End Function

But that will only let you do 'raw' requests from the code - it won't pop IE open with the results page.

**malfunction** · 06-01-2005, 04:56 PM

Reference for WinHTTPRequest (top tip - google using "WinHTTPRequest site:msdn.microsoft.com" or any other object name / MS programming thing):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...ttprequest.asp

**Stoo** · 06-01-2005, 05:33 PM

Just bypass access completely and create an asp page to pull the info out of Oracle directly?

**malfunction** · 06-01-2005, 05:37 PM

Originally Posted by Stoo

Just bypass access completely and create an asp page to pull the info out of Oracle directly?

Aye - that's what I was trying to say with this:

Originally Posted by Me

Also - why not just make all the GUI stuff the webpage?

ASP would have no problem running queries on both databases.

If that's not an option though it would help us understand it more if you could define which bits do what

**GAteKeeper** · 06-01-2005, 05:41 PM

The reason its not all ASP based is because they dont want to pay me to do.

Just reading up on the MSDN articles. Ta for the pointers.

GK

**GAteKeeper** · 06-01-2005, 05:50 PM

I was trying ot avoid having to do something like this:

Code:

<html>
<head>
<SCRIPT lang=JavaScript>
<!--
function submitform()
{
document.forms.form1.submit;
}
//-->
</SCRIPT>
</head>
<body onLoad="submitform()">
<form name="form1" action="http://someserver/ASP/somepage.asp" method="POST">
<input name="Username" type="Hidden" value="User123">
<input name="Password" type="Hidden" value="Password57">
<input name="CourseID" type="Hidden" value="45732">
</body>
</html>

Open an IE window - set the html to that (although as it was written off the top of my head there has got to be an error in it) and run it

Not an amazing eligant way of doing it but it should work

GAteKeeper

**malfunction** · 06-01-2005, 06:06 PM

Originally Posted by GAteKeeper

I was trying ot avoid having to do something like this:

Code:

<html>
<head>
<SCRIPT lang=JavaScript>
<!--
function submitform()
{
document.forms.form1.submit;
}
//-->
</SCRIPT>
</head>
<body onLoad="submitform()">
<form name="form1" action="http://someserver/ASP/somepage.asp" method="POST">
<input name="Username" type="Hidden" value="User123">
<input name="Password" type="Hidden" value="Password57">
<input name="CourseID" type="Hidden" value="45732">
</body>
</html>

Open an IE window - set the html to that (although as it was written off the top of my head there has got to be an error in it) and run it

Not an amazing eligant way of doing it but it should work

GAteKeeper

If you know how to pass HTML to IE to display then you could do the HTTP post from within access - though it's a bit of a kludge either way. Maybe you should try and convince them to spend more on the website anyway?

**GAteKeeper** · 06-01-2005, 06:12 PM

Not sure its not on the cards anyway BUT I need a proof of concept to demonstrate its possible, which it must be.

TA for you help

GK

**GAteKeeper** · 06-01-2005, 09:06 PM

Right I have my solution:

After much searching in some thing I had already looked into I found a POST data bit hidden in the IE automation object (Reference: Microsoft Internet Controls) that uses .Navigate(URL, Options, Frame, PostData, Headers).

I struggled to get it to work at first but after re-reading the spec of Navigate I realised that PostData needs to be an array of Bytes - hence the conversion line.

Code:

    Dim IeApp As InternetExplorer
    Dim sURL As String
    Dim sPostdata As String
    Dim bPostdata() As Byte
    Dim i As Long
    Dim heading
    Dim frame
    Dim zero
    
    'Create new instance of IE
    Set IeApp = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.application")
    
    'Make it visible - some things don’t work
    'unless it’s visible
    IeApp.Visible = True
    
    'define the page to open
    sURL = "http://192.168.1.44/JBH/test_form_returns.asp"
    sPostdata = "username=" & Me.user
    sPostdata = sPostdata & "&password=" & Me.pass
    sPostdata = sPostdata & "&courseID=" & Me.courseID
    'Convert the string to a byte array
    bPostdata = StrConv(sPostdata, vbFromUnicode)
    heading = "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" & vbCrLf
    frame = "" ' "_SELF"
    zero = 0 'no history

    'navigate to the page
    IeApp.Navigate sURL, zero, frame, bPostdata, heading
 
    
    'Pause the macro using a loop until the
    'page is fully loaded
    'Do
    'Loop Until IeApp.ReadyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
    
 
    'Clean up
    'IeApp.Quit
    Set IeApp = Nothing

Cheers for all your help

GAteKeeper

**DaBeeeenster** · 07-01-2005, 12:50 AM

LOL this thread reminds me why I dumped MS and learnt Java

**DigiGuru** · 25-01-2005, 02:22 PM

There's a nice easy object to use for getting and posting to web sites...

It's the XMLHTTP object. It's a Microsoft object and is well documented on the web. I've used it in ASP to talk Server->Server.

This would allow you to pass data back and forth transparently (you can even do it Asynchronously if you like) without the user even knowing a second server was being accessed.

Here's a good place to start: http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/110100-1.shtml

**Stoo** · 25-01-2005, 03:16 PM

The thing is, it really wouldn't have been any more difficult to build a simple asp page to do the lot, in fact it probably would have been easier..

**GAteKeeper** · 25-01-2005, 04:35 PM

*Rolls eyes*

I was trying to pass oracle login details to the web page (as well as a couple of IDs). Not to get data from ASP pages but pass control to a separate ASP system.

GAteKeeper

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