Passing form values between websites??? 1

[ssnapier]

I want to have a form on my page that will query a database on another website (yes I have permission) and then I want the results of that query to be back on my website somehow. Can anyone here help me accomplish this?

Here is an example of what I want.... go here:

http://www.truckinjuries.com

type the word "Swift" into the carrier name thing and notice what happens... well that data is coming from this site:

http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/SafeStat/SafeStatMain.asp

How can I duplicate this???

 

[damber]

The first link may get it's data from a variety of sources in many different ways - what do you mean "that data is coming from this site:" ? How do you know? and more importantly, how are they retrieving it ?

That aside, and focusing on your requirement to display data from the second link in your site, you have a few options..

1. If that site provides a web service (e.g. via SOAP/REST) and give you access, then you can lookup data realtime (if you want) or follow their schedule and download at set intervals and update your own database.

2. If that site offers you direct access to their database server then just use ADO as normal and set the server name in the connection string.

3. The site has a downloadable spreadsheet full of the data, you could schedule a program to download the spreadsheet and read the contents into your database for later usage - theoretically you could do this real-time, but don't bother, it will be hideously slow and clumsy.

4. If you don't mind users leaving your site you could set up a form with the same inputs/elements and have the target set as the same as the form in the second site - this will mean that the user gets redirected to the results page of that site based on the inputs they entered on your form. Not a very elegant solution.. but very simple.

5. You could also 'screen scrape' using XMLHTTP to POST the form details to the target results page then parse through the response and output to your page or database.

It's up to you, but to literally 'duplicate' the first site, you need to know how they are doing that - they may have access to the database or a web service or an offline CD or just download those spreadsheets - hard to tell.

Try talking to the provider of the information or even the owner of the first site, and ask them what they have used or think is the best option for integrating with the source data.

A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[Sheco]

You could use frames but that isnt so much an ASP solution as an HTML one. Also your look/feel will be all wrong but hey, its easy.

 

[DotNetGnat]

use XMLHttp

there is a very good article relating to this on 4guysfromrolla website...but i am unable to find it...

will post it if i find it...you can search too...

-DNG

 

[ssnapier]

Screen scrape sounds like the best option here, and any guidance you could give on that would be wonderful!

 

[Sheco]

Below is a link to the page that DNG mentioned:

http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/110100-1.shtml