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TexasSwede

A Swedish Notes programmer in Texas

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Parse URL in Domino agent

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

Not Forum Friday, but Usenet Tuesday. :-)  A user in comp.groupware.lotus-notes.programmer had a question about generating Notes document remotely/in an automated way from another web application, using Perl:

 

> We have a Lotus Notes application and we would like to automate
> creating a new document or record in that application from another web
> based application.
>
> Here are the details:
> User action on web application triggers a PERL script to create a new
> record (document) in Lotus Notes (or Domino).

 

Here is my suggestion:

 

Create an agent that read the URL parameters you send to it.
Let's call the agent CreateNewDocument, and have two fields we want to fill out when the document is created. The Perl script can then call the URL like this:
 
 
The agent read the arguments and populate the corresponding fields, then save the document. I would highly recommend using a list to store the parameters, then you have a generic function you can re-use in any application.
In my article in the November/December 2006 issue of The View (starting on page 25) you have code for this.
 
Here is a class I just wrote to parse an incoming HTTP GET or POST. Put it in a script library called for example "URL.class":
 
Class URLclass
Public url As String
Private params List As String

Public Sub New()
  Dim session As New NotesSession
  Dim doc As NotesDocument
  Set doc = session.DocumentContext ' Document with all CGI variables
  ' Check if HTTP GET or POST was used...
  If Instr(doc.Query_String(0),"&") > 0 Then  ' GET was used
   url = doc.Query_String(0) 
  Elseif Instr(doc.Request_Content(0),"&") > 0 Then ' POST was used
   url = "&" & doc.Request_Content(0)
  Else          ' No parameters
   Exit Sub
  End If
End Sub

Public Function GetParams() As Variant
  Dim offset As Integer
  Dim startpos As Integer
  Dim midpos As Integer
  Dim endpos As Integer
  Dim nextpos As Integer
  Dim dataname As String
  Dim datavalue As String
  startpos = Instr(url,"&")    ' Start of first parameter
  Do While Not startpos = 0
   nextpos = Instr(startpos+1, url, "&") ' Start of next parameter
   If nextpos = 0 Then     ' We reached the end
    endpos = Len(url)+1
   Else
    endpos = nextpos
   End If
   midpos = Instr(startpos+1, url, "=") ' Position of = character
   dataname = Mid$(url,startpos+1,midpos-startpos-1)  ' Get name
   datavalue = Mid$(url,midpos+1,endpos-midpos-1)  ' Get value
   params(dataname) = datavalue   ' Add value to list
   startpos = nextpos     ' Set new start position
  Loop
  GetParams = params
End Function

End Class
 

Here is a sample agent that uses the class and print the arguments to the browser. Just expand on that code to create the document in the database:

 

Option Public
Option Declare
Use "URL.class"
 

Sub Initialize
 Dim url As New URLclass

 Dim params As Variant
 params = url.GetParams()
 Forall x In params
   Print Listtag(x) & " = " & params(Listtag(x)) & "<br>"
 End Forall
End Sub

 

The LotusScript was converted to HTML using the ls2html routine,
provided by Julian Robichaux at nsftools.com.

Visited US states and European contries

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

OK, I was a little bit bored, and thought I would create two more maps of visited places, one of the US states and one of European contries.



Out of Office Agent

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

Bill Buchan just posted a great SNTT entry about the Out of Office Agent on his blog. I did learn some new things there, like I usually do when reading his blog. He is also the one that got me to start doing object oriented Lotusscript programming. As anyone that seen him present at Lotusphere or some other conference know, he is a very entertaining speaker, but he is also very smart and know his stuff...

Windows Vista toilet paper

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

You can now wipe yourself with Vista toilet paper:

(From TechWorld Mikrodatorn and Akiba PC Hotline)

Places I have visited

Karl-Henry Martinsson  


Create your own visited country map!

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008)

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

One of the great writers of the 20th century has left us. Arthur C Clarke, best known for his books 2001: A Space Odyssey Rendezvous with Rama, Earthlight and The Sands of Mars.

But Arthur C. Clarke was not only a science fiction writer. He was an avid scuba diver (which is why he moved to Sri Lanka), and he came up with the concept of using geo-stationary satellites for communicatiions. The geostationary orbit is sometimes called the Clarke Orbit in his honor. He was even involved in some satellite programs, including Telstar.

He will be missed.

VMware overload?

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

A couple of weeks ago I installed VMware Workstation on my computer at home, so i could have a clean XP install to clone and use for program testing and to run multiple environments at the same time. I also installed Ubuntu 7.10 the weekend before last. This weekend I had some spare time. So I installed Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 2000 Professional, Kubuntu 7.10, OpenSUSE 10.3 and even Mac OS X 10.4.7(!). It is a strange feeling to run OS X on a PC...

I also got a new computer at work, doing similar there, but just XP and Ubuntu/Kubuntu so I can show people the environment. Might install OS X just for fun (and to test webpages with)...

A (non-geek) friend asked me this weekend: "Why are you doing that?", and my answer was "Because I can"... I guess it is the same reason I collect water bottles from Lotusphere: they are there and I can... :-)

Top 15 Google Street View Pictures

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

http://mashable.com/2007/05/31/top-15-google-street-view-sightings/

Some funny ones, some silly ones. Personally I think #14 is the best one. Followed by #4.

Lotusphere water bottle collection

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

Over the years I got a small collection of Lotusphere water bottles. It started in 2003 when I ended up with a couple of extra bottles in my backpack on the last day, and I brought them home with me. The next year I picked up a couple again to drink at the airport while waiting for my flight, and I got one leftover as well. Since then I made sure I bring home at least one bottle per year for my little collection.

This year I noticed that the older bottles were squished, like there were vacum inside. The older they were the more squished. I let some air in and noticed that it seems like water is evaporating despite the bottles being closed. Quite interesting, since there was a vacum inside. It seems like the water evaporates and get out, while air is not able to get in. The bottles have been stored above the washer, with the dryer a few feet away. Might be the temperature that did it.

Birthday Cake

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

A couple of days ago (well, March 3) it was my birthday, and I decided to bake a cake, as I usually do. I enjoy baking and cooking, and that way I also get to have a cake the way I am used to from Sweden. I will post the directions when I get home, but it is really easy.

The main difference between the cakes made the traditionally way in the US and in Sweden/Europe are listed below, but there are of course exceptions:

United States Europe/Sweden
Layers Solid cake, or 2 layers 3 or more layers
Filling Sugar/butter mix, sometimes chocolate flavored Whipped cream, fruit/berries, jam, vanilla custard, or chocolate
Cake covering "Icing" (butter/sugar mix) Whipped cream
Decoration Colored icing Fresh fruit

SNTT - XML importer class

Karl-Henry Martinsson  

Yes, I know it is Tuesday, but I was too busy last week for the SNTT entry...

 

At my workplace, we are in the process of purchasing and implementing a new billing system. It relies heavily on XML files, stored in the file system, for inport/export. The idea is that we export XML from our policy system to be processed by this software. The results are returned as XML files, and we are currently looking at how we can consume them and present them to the accounting department.

We are mainly looking at tools like Crystal Reports 2008.

Just for fun, I decided to write an XML importer in Lotusscript. The XML is very simple so I did not have to do any advanced parsing.
I decided to write it as a class. The class just have a few methods. One is of course New(), the only thing it does is clear the xmldata string and also clear the list of XML tags from memory.

LoadXMLData() open the specified XML file and read the text into the xmldata string, adding a linebreak after each line.

XML2List take the xmlstring, parse it and build a list of all the tags and values. Because the XML is so simple, with no multiple values or deeply nested data, I can very easily parse it using normal string operations in a Do-While loop.

The final method is called CreateNotesDocument(), it creates a new Notes document in the specified database, using the specified form. To process the sample XML file with 66 XMl entries took 0.148 seconds (according to TeamStudio Profiler).

Here is the code:

Class XMLClass
Private xmldata As String
Private xml List As String

Public Sub New()
  xmldata=""
  Erase xml
End Sub

Public Sub LoadXMLData(filename As String)
  Dim xmlline As String
  Open filename For Input As #1
  xmldata = ""
  While Not Eof(1)
   Line Input #1, xmlline
   xmldata = xmldata & xmlline & Chr$(13)
  Wend
  Close #1
End Sub

Public Sub XML2List()
  Dim tag As String
  Dim value As String
  Dim startpos As Long
  Dim endpos As Long
  Dim nextpos As Long
  Dim endtagpos As Long
 
  endpos = 1
  Do
   startpos = Instr(endpos,xmldata,"<")
   If startpos > 0 Then
    endpos = Instr(startpos,xmldata,">")
   End If
   If endpos > 0 Then
    tag = Mid$(xmldata,startpos+1,endpos-startpos-1)
    If Instr(tag,"/")=1 Then
     startpos = Instr(endpos+1,xmldata,"<")
    Else
     nextpos = Instr(endpos,xmldata,"<")
     endtagpos = Instr(endpos,xmldata,"</" & tag & ">")
     If endtagpos = nextpos Then
      value = Mid$(xmldata,endpos+1,nextpos-endpos-1)
      If Iselement(xml(tag)) = False Then
       xml(tag) = value
      End If
      endpos = Instr(nextpos,xmldata,">")
     End If
    End If   
   End If
  Loop While startpos > 0
End Sub

Public Sub CreateNotesDocument(db As NotesDatabase, form As String)
  Dim doc As NotesDocument
  Set doc = New NotesDocument(db)
  doc.Form = form
  Forall x In xml
   Call doc.ReplaceItemValue(Listtag(x),x)
  End Forall
  Call doc.Save(True,True)
End Sub
 
End Class


Sub Initialize
Dim session As New NotesSession
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Dim noic As XMLclass

Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
Set noic = New XMLclass()
Call noic.LoadXMLData("c:\XSLT\NOIC-1450-01 0-2007Nov09.xml")
Call noic.XML2List()
Call noic.CreateNotesDocument(db,"NOIC")
End Sub


 

This LotusScript was converted to HTML using the ls2html routine,
provided by Julian Robichaux at nsftools.com.

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