Database - Database integrate with pearl mail form

Not sure if this helps, but I use a variation of the popular FormMail called BFormMail. The options in it for appending to a database are:

<input type="hidden" name="append_db" value="./formdata/infotest.dat">
<input type="hidden" name="db_delimiter" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="db_fields" value="realname,email,Company,Phone,
Location,How Found,Feedback,Please Call">

Haven't tried it yet, but would think once you have a text .dat file, would be easy to import to Access. Would use your own paths, filenames, etc.

Interesting, delimiter value was "pipe", but bT won't display it. Added it twice and both times it omitted it.

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Dan
[email protected]

Ok...
To Dan, I am also using the BForm mail script that u are familiar with. Can you give me more info on the text .dat file? I'm not sure how to implement that file at all.

Pat,
There ya go. That's the script I'm using. Can you elaborate a bit on the text file that Dan was talking about. Also, is it simple to improt them manually?

Thanks for the response guys!

Shpek

hi shpek!
i use a script at the office that saves data like this:
userID/week/description/date/time
the access database offers an assistant to import this data, the only thing you have to do is to select the separator(pipe or slash) and access will do the rest...
use the access-help to find out more!
cds, maybe i misunderstood something, but what you describe is to write a db at the server, or not?
cu
patrick

Patrick,
I was indeed talking about creating a db on the server, ftping in and d/l file and then integrate into access. If you would like to get the script we're talking about so you can see for yourself, it can be found at http://www.infosheet.com

Shpek,
I guess I was a little bit unclear in my explanation. What I mean't was an ascii text based flat db file with a .dat extension. Think it can actually have any extension, just as long as you tell Bform what it is. dat seems to be the standard though.

To create a flat file db such as this.

Suppose your form has form items named Name, email, Web Address. You would create a file whatever.dat. (This can be tricky, because some cgi database programs won't read a db file if it was created in say notepad because of the linefeed characters it puts in. I use hotdog pro because it has a Unix mode to create files with. If you were integrating direct into access, not sure this would be a problem.)

Any ideas on that patrick?

Anyway, you would input in the first line of this file your three form fields mentioned above. Seeing as BT doesn't seem to like the "pipe", we'll use a "\" for a db separator character. This is case sensitive, so make sure you have them exact. It would look like this:

Name\email\Web Address

Save this file and upload it to the directory of your choice.

Using this db as an example, the three lines I had listed in the other post would look like this:

<input type="hidden" name="append_db" value="./yourdirectoryname/whatever.dat">
<input type="hidden" name="db_delimiter" value="\">
<input type="hidden" name="db_fields" value="Name,email,Web Address">

You can have as many fields in your form as you want, but it will only integrate fields you have listed in the third line.
Hope this makes sense

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Dan
http://cds-computers.com

hi cds!
ideas about the CR-problem?
sure, had to fix a lot of this problems.....
i could handle almost everything by up- and downloading the .dat file in ascii, this converted all CRs to unix-compatible. just in case you'll still have some troubles, try to convert every \n to \r\n. works with me!
cu
patrick
PS: will have a look at the script later on, thanks!

Patrick,

Actually what i was referring to on the CR thing was whether Access would care whether it had a WIN/DOS type of CR.

Just as an added note to db extensions, could use a comma for separator and use extension of csv (comma separated value). You could then import into Excel if you desired.

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Dan
http://cds-computers.com

SUCCESS!

Well I got the .dat file to work!
OK so next question.... I am using the following statement:
<input type=hidden name="env_report" value="REMOTE_HOST, HTTP_USER_AGENT, REMOTE_ADDR">

I want to know this info so that i can detect which browser a user is using. Do you guys know how to include this info in the .dat file on the server? This is something important that I want to include in the data base.

Thanks !!!!!!
Shpek

Shpek,
Have you tried just adding them to your db as field headers? Have never tried it, so don't know if it will work. Know bform displays them in the email as if they were field names in your form.

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Dan
http://cds-computers.com

Hey All,

Thanks for ALL your input once again!

I will try to get this to work.

PS. Do you guys know where to get a good maillist.cgi file where a user could enter their email through a form and have it stored in a database for bulk email.

And how about an online Q&A java or cgi script? Similiar to the one this forum uses.

Thanks a ton!

Shpek

Yea I have and I don't receive the info in my return email.
Not quite sure which way to go on this one.
Maybe it can't be done but I think there's got to be a way...

Shpek