Combineer WC/CDML en PHP

[dannydv]

http://www.wellspringdata.com/fsp.html

FileSpring Pipeline (FSP)

When to use FSP

The FileSpring Pipeline was created to allow the use of PHP to post-process web pages created by Web Companion. This is especially useful if you have an existing WC/CDML solution that you don't want to recode but you want more data processing power than CDML can provide.

 

To our knowledge, FSP is the only solution that allows you to reuse existing CDML without recoding and incrementally add PHP where you need it. No tag changes, no URL changes.

 

If you want to create dynamic web pages in PHP with FMP as a data source, have a look at FX.php. FSP and FX.php can be used together on the same site, even on the same page if you like. FX.php is one of the components of the complete FileSpring "technology suite."

 

FSP is similar in operation to Web Server Connector. Like WSC, FSP runs on a full-fledged web server (Apache is recommended and the only web server covered in these instructions) and forwards requests to Web Companion. It does not do load balancing, although WSC-style load-balancing (really request alternation) would be easy to implement. And with FSP you get all the source code!

How it works

Alias directives tell Apache to send any requests containing the string "FMPRO" (or variants) to FSP.php. FSP processes the HTTP request and rewrites it to go to Web Companion running on the host and port number specified in the config file. This is similar to a reverse proxy.

 

Since it has to forward the URI and the POST data in the request, FSP will also look for and remove any reference to "-fmp_xml" if the $filter_xml config variable is set. This will effectively cripple any request that is trying to get XML data out of Filemaker. Such a request will still be forwarded on to WC, but without a valid format statement, WC will return an error.

 

FSP waits for the requested page to come back from WC. When it has the complete page, it will run it through PHP (unless $passthru is set), allowing you to post-process the results of a CDML page with PHP. The PHP code is actually embedded in the web page along with the CDML--WC will ignore it, passing it back to FSP along with the HTML.

 

After PHP has evaluated the web page, it is sent back to the browser, which is none the wiser to all the activity behind the curtain!

[Peter Wagemans]

Zeer interessant. Er zijn een aantal zaken waar ze nog geen rekening mee houden:

 

- -max=all -> doet je FileMaker web host ook geen goed, te filteren.

- ALLE negatieve format files zouden eigenlijk gefilterd moeten kunnen worden.

- -dbopen en -dbclose?

- de tags [FMP-clientAddress] en [FMP-clientName] zullen niet werken op deze manier, omdat je daar speciale header tags voor moet doorgeven. FileMaker zal het IP adres van de web server in de pagina's zetten. Eigenlijk onaanvaardbaar.

- de gebruikte socket technologie is nogal shaky, ze zouden eigenlijk beter curl libraries gebruiken. Er zit nogal weinig error handling in (timeouts?), dus dit is niet erg stabiel. Je kan je web server "ophangen" bij problemen aan de kant van de web host.

- de authorization headers zijn nogal simpel opgevat. Kijk maar eens in de phpbbcode (dit forum), dat is iets grondiger gedaan.

 

Gezien het "artistic license"-ware is, en volledig open source zal ik me beperken tot positieve kritiek, bedenk wel even waar je aan begint als je dit soort dingen klakkeloos implementeert op je web server.

Edited December 7, 2002 by Guest

[Peter Wagemans]

oeps - nog een kleinigheidje. Extract van de licentie van FileMaker Pro:

 

(e) SPECIAL TERMS FOR FILEMAKER PRO ONLY: If you have licensed the standard version of FileMaker Pro, when deploying FileMaker Pro for hosting non-FileMaker Pro clients, you are permitted to host up to but not more than ten (10) guests (e.g., IP addresses via the Web Companion) or other API connections (e.g. ODBC, JDBC, Apple Events or ActiveX) on a rolling twelve (12) hour schedule. You are further prohibited from using the standard version of FileMaker Pro with any middleware, application server, CGI, or other software or technology that allows more than a single client to access any FileMaker Pro database.

 

Ik verwacht dat deze jongens stilgelegd gaan worden door de advocaten van FileMaker Inc.