>1. What are the considerations to determine if I use an .EXE or a .DLL?

Unless the same app also serves duty as a user interface fo somethng else, I would just use a DLL.

>2. What does the user need on their machine to run this whole process? IE4 and what else? Does my VFP COM object run on the server or locally on the client/user's machine?

ON the server. The user doesn't need anything but a browser. Not even that really (see below)


>3. What is the best way (again, just in general) to pass data out of a table (in this case it's an access table ) to my COM object?

Your COM object is just a VFP object that is compiled into a COM object. It responds to method calls and can return values just like a regular class. So in your ASP page, you might do something like:

SET oMyCom = CREATEOBJECT("MyServer.MyObject")
SET cMyVar = oMyCom.GetValidationKey()


and then oMyCom.GetValidationKey would run your VFP code; using tables, arrays, whatever and return a value that you calculated.

>4. If instead of just showing the user their Registration Number on the screen, I wanted to pass that number back to my VFP program and do 'stuff' with it (encrypt it and save it in my VFP table), what is the best way to do this?


You don't really need a browser to interface with a website. Windows comes with a library of internet functions (actually, what most browsers use internally) taht allow you to get the results of a URL directly in your program. Rick Strahl has a freeware tool called wwIPStuff that does this really painlessly. In your program, you would issuecode like this:

oIP = CREATEOBJECT('wwIPStuff')
lcPageResults = oIP.HTTPGet('http://www.myvalidationserver.com/myAspPage.ASP')

lcPageResults would then hold the text of the ASP page as it was sent over the wire. No browser needed. Windows is usually even smart enough to initiate the Dial-up connection when you make a call to functions like these.

HTH. Let me know if I have confused you even more...

Erik Moore
Clientelligence