application -> web portal data transfer?

[Mike Johnson]

Hello,

I am designing an application system which needs to transfer regularly
a small amount of text information (say 100 Kbytes)
programmatically from a C++ DLL to a customer's web portal,
across the internet.

I will be writing the C++ DLL, and will be working with
my customer's web/database programmer to design the system.

Although I'm very familiar with Windows application development,
I'm less familiar with modern Web programming techniques.

What would be the cleanest way to transfer this text to the portal?

I'd like the web/database programmer to have to do as little work as possible.

Although I work with C#/.NET, for ease of deployment I'd prefer straight C++.

Just off the top of my head, these are the mechanisms I've come up with:

Custom TCP/IP protocol - this would require the web programmer to
write a server to listen on a well-known port.
This will also cause firewall problems.

Custom protocol, encapsulated in a SOAP message - the data can easily
be represented in XML. This would get around the firewall issue,
but the web programmer would still have to write and run a custom server.

I could have my program *email* the data to the web programmer's mail server!

Any advice on the cleanest way to implement this data transfer?

Thanks very much, Mike

[Martin Honnen]

Post by Mike Johnson
I am designing an application system which needs to transfer regularly
a small amount of text information (say 100 Kbytes)
programmatically from a C++ DLL to a customer's web portal,
across the internet.
I will be writing the C++ DLL, and will be working with
my customer's web/database programmer to design the system.
Although I'm very familiar with Windows application development,
I'm less familiar with modern Web programming techniques.
What would be the cleanest way to transfer this text to the portal?
I'd like the web/database programmer to have to do as little work as possible.
Although I work with C#/.NET, for ease of deployment I'd prefer straight C++.
Custom TCP/IP protocol - this would require the web programmer to
write a server to listen on a well-known port.
This will also cause firewall problems.
Custom protocol, encapsulated in a SOAP message - the data can easily
be represented in XML. This would get around the firewall issue,
but the web programmer would still have to write and run a custom server.
I could have my program *email* the data to the web programmer's mail server!
Any advice on the cleanest way to implement this data transfer?

Well it partly depends on that web portal, if there is already a CGI (or
ASP or JSP or PHP) application set up to receive information as part of
a HTTP request then you could easily apply MSXML to do a HTTP POST
request with your text information as the HTTP request body. The web
application then only needs to read the body of the HTTP request it
receives, if that is an ASP application and you post XML then it is as
easy as doing
Dim RequestXml
Set RequestXml = Server.CreateObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument.3.0")
RequestXml.async = False
Dim Loaded
Loaded = RequestXml.load(Request)

[Mike Johnson]

Hi Martin,

Thanks very much for your informed reply.

The portal is PHP/MySql-based.
I'll know more when I speak with the web programmer there.

Right now on the client side (my side),
I am considering just POSTing the data to his server
using WinInet functionality.

Thanks again,
Mike

Post by Martin Honnen
Well it partly depends on that web portal, if there is already a CGI (or
ASP or JSP or PHP) application set up to receive information as part of
a HTTP request then you could easily apply MSXML to do a HTTP POST
request with your text information as the HTTP request body. The web
application then only needs to read the body of the HTTP request it
receives, if that is an ASP application and you post XML then it is as
easy as doing
Dim RequestXml
Set RequestXml = Server.CreateObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument.3.0")
RequestXml.async = False
Dim Loaded
Loaded = RequestXml.load(Request)