I am trying to put together a function that returns whether the current machine is offline. I am working from VB code, and thought that I had it worked out, but am getting the same result whether or not the machine is connected or not. Here is what I have:

FUNCTION ConnectedToInternet
	SET PROC TO CLSHeap
	INTERNET_OPTION_CONNECTED_STATE = 50
	INTERNET_STATE_CONNECTED = 1
	INTERNET_STATE_DISCONNECTED = 2


	* Queries an Internet option on the specified handle'
	DECLARE INTEGER InternetQueryOption ;
		IN wininet.dll ;
		LONG hInternet, ;
		LONG lOption, ;
		STRING @sBuffer, ;
		LONG @lBufferLength 

	lsConnectionInfo = SPACE(8)
	lnCILen = 8
	
	lnResult = InternetQueryOption(0, INTERNET_OPTION_CONNECTED_STATE, @lsConnectionInfo, @lnCILen)

	IF DWordtoNum(lsConnectionInfo) = INTERNET_STATE_CONNECTED
		RETURN .T.
	ELSE
		RETURN .F.
	ENDIF
ENDFUNC

DWordtoNum is a function in Ed Rauh's class heap class that does as the name implies: converts a 4 byte DWord to a VFP number.

lsConnectionInfo is an 8 byte string that substitutes for a structure declared in VB like:

PUBLIC TYPE INTERNET_CONNECTED_INFO
dwConnectedState AS LONG
dwFlags AS LONG
END TYPE

The funky things I have noticed: I pass in the size of the lsConnectionInfo string as 8, but after the function call, it is sized to 4. What happened to the other DWord?

The other thing I am not sure about is the syntax in te following VB sample:

ret = InternetQueryOption(0&, INTERNET_OPTION_CONNECTED_STATE, ci,ci_len)

what is the "&" in the first parameter?

I am not sure if my code is not working, or the wininet function is returning a value I am not expecting- anybody care to explain where what I might be going wrong?

FYI, the VB code I am working from is in KB article Q200027.