My data is stored in the form of a .csv file on another computer, which is like an office server. I am developing an iphone app that requires to read this data during runtime. Note that I can easily parse a csv file given its stored on my system.
As far as I know Java uses socket programming for this. I know there must be a similar provision in Objective C. Please guide me as to what class in Xcode can help me with this.
You can set up a web service in the office server and hit the url for fetching the data. Use NSURLConnection for this.
Related
I have a lightswitch project in visual studio 2013, using vb.net. I would like the user to be able to click a button and have lightswitch find an excel file, and upload that file to a sql table according to a pre-determined column mapping.
My preference was to use the Office Integration extension for visual studio, which I got working with VS 2013 by downloading it from this link: http://www.ge.tt/71iuRQv/v/0
However, the documentation and examples for office integration seem to be very heavy on getting an excel spreadsheet into a display in the lightswitch web client, rather than into the sql data table, which is where I need it. Here are the examples I've been following:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bethmassi/archive/2012/07/18/new-and-improved-office-integration-pack-extension-for-lightswitch.aspx
Alternatively, I have an existing stored procedure, and I can request that the server call this stored proc by sending a web API extension from the client to the server. I have this working already for other stored procs, according to examples from Beth Masi and Paul van Bladel. (Stackoverflow won't let me post the links...)
The undesirable part of this approach is that the stored proc is old, and messy.
I've searched and searched, but have yet to find anyone approach this problem for VS 2013 with lightswitch. Any useful advice?
I've used the method detailed by Matt Sampson to store word files and it works very well. Since it just stores the raw binary it should handle Excel files just as well.
If you're creating the table in LightSwitch, use the Binary Type. If you use SQL create scripts use varbinary(MAX).
You need to create a custom Silverlight dialog box to gain access to the OpenFileDialog object. Then open the file in as a FileStream.
Finally, you need to add a handler for the closed method of the control and then show the control to the user. Most likely done in a button. This needs to be done on the main dispatcher.
The code examples are in C# but I just used one of the many available translators out on the web and copy/pasted the VB.NET code.
Another option might be to consider shelling out to the DTSEXEC run-time to execute an SSIS package to perform the upload - especially if the target Excel spreadsheets have predefined layouts and content data types.
Even simpler, you might be able to use the SQL Server BULK INSERT command to get the job done - although that would require a SQL Client connection to your database.
HTH
I am writing a VBA script to import data from an Access database to a remote database server. (It happens to be PostgreSQL, but I don't think that's very relevant.) At the moment, my scripts are embedded inside an Access database. However, I would like to version my scripts like I do my other source code: as plain text so SVN can give me good change tracking.
I would also prefer not to have to deliver the source files to the client for them to use the script. In other words, I would like to deliver the import tool already compiled into the Access database. Is it possible to do so?
Or am I chasing the wrong rabbit? Is there a way I can use the Access libraries without embedding any code into the Access database? My searching suggests not, but I'm open to the possibility. This is the first thing I've ever done with VBA, so there's a ton I don't know, I'm sure.
I think I was going down the wrong rabbit hole (and I think I was using a non-existent idiom). Turns out that there are some .NET interop DLLs for Office. My machine seems to have the .NET interop DLLs already installed with Office, so all I had to do was add a reference to the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Access DLL and create an application object:
var app = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Access.Application();
I think a .NET app is going to be more suited to my needs. I'm not going to be doing a lot of Access specific things. This will allow me to have my source under version control as usual. The only downside is that any development machine (and build server, if I automate the build) will need Access installed, but that was going to happen with a VBA script, anyway.
If you don't want to do it within Access, you may want to tag this differently.
You can deliver your database to the client as an MDE file, which is a compiled and stand-alone Access database. The client will not be able to see the modules or other VBA code in this format, if that is your main concern.
I have a stand-alone Windows Form app written in VB.NET that currently connects to a local Access DB (.mdb file) and consumes data from several of the tables. It never writes to nor modifies the DB. I'm trying to figure out how to secure this DB so the user has no access to it. I'm thinking the best way is to store the DB as an embedded resource within the project. However, I can't figure out how to make this work.
I've added the .mdb file to the project resources and set its properties to "Embedded Resource" and "Do not copy." But now how do I reference the DB to create the connection?
Before I used the connection string "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; Data Source=MyDatabase.mdb"
How do I write the connection string now with reference to an embedded resource?
"I'm thinking the best way is to store the DB as an embedded resource within the project."
This usually relates to old skool security, in the olden days DotNetNuke developers that used Access dBs as their backend actually renamed the .mdb to .resources as you cant download a resource file from the web.
"Would it be better to export the DB to xml or something like that and then use a stream reader as opposed to a database connection?"
No. You cant read an Access file from a stream And an XML dB has even less concurrency support than an Access Database.
If you really need to protect the data, then you've absolutely chosen the wrong data store.
#JohnBustos wrote "Store the DB remotely and have the program access it over the internet."
Please do not do this. If anything put it on a network share and restrict access. Then look at upgrading the access dB to SQL Server.
Yes, I have had the same problem and I converted the database into a XML or even a TXT file that is embedded. It works very fine !
Sorry, I never closed this out.
My solution was even simpler than those proposed. You can add the .mdb file to the project itself and not mess with the whole "Resource" business. Then set the file's Copy to Output property to "Do not copy". So the .mdb gets compiled into the app, but file itself is not available to the user.
How would one go about incorporating, for example a 'mailing list' where user could fill in a text field for 'name' and 'email address' and click a submit button that would add the data to a database on a remote server.
Property lists would be the most convenient but the whole plist would need to be downloaded to the users device, modified and reuploaded (which looks involved and easily corrupted). SQLite is likewise built for a local database. Is there a simple way to do this or is server side php scripting the only real answer?
I see a lot of replies about this question that specify a specific database type and programming solution. The real solution is a web service, of any kind, and a data store, of any kind.
This could be SQL Server with a web service written in ASP.NET. It could also just as easily be a MySQL database with an interface written in PHP. But for the love all things secure don't try to attach to a database directly.
It would appear the most practical method at this time is a remote MySQL (or similar) database queried from php scripts that are called from the app via NSURLRequests (. Information about the query can be sent using the _POST variable.
HI,
I'm new to iphone programming and developing travel application, which retrieve most of it data from remote database.
What is the best way to implement this solution? I thought of generating XML files in server side and getting data via XML files to iPhone app and displaying them...
Is there better implementation to this, thank you in advance?
Waruna.
It's up to you and the kind of data you are using and any licenseing concerns.
I chose to use json, as data being transferred is more compact, and there is a json framework available here. There are quite a lot of tutorials available for it too.
I've used it very succesfully with a php backend on a couple of projects.