AboutDon Schullian Expertise I`ve worked in BASIC since the Commodore days and maintain a web site part of which is devoted to helping others with thier problems. I`m proficient in all versions of PowerBASIC but cross over to QuickBASIC and Qbasic frequently.
Expert: Don Schullian Date: 6/10/2008 Subject: read info from another proggie
Question QUESTION: I'd like to be able to make a qbasic program that will read information from another dos based program, specifically BOSS. How would i go about doing that?
ANSWER: I'm not familiar with the BOSS program's method of storing data so I can't be of any help to you. You can either try to decipher how the data is stored or search the web in case someone has offered that info.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Ok say I figure that out, how do I call up the information in QB? And is there a way to read information in real time?
So to give you an idea, here's my project, a proggie access's a customer's info, lets say the number of telephone lines they have, is there a way to get QB to communicate with it to read that info? Or does it have to be sent from the proggie to QB if there is no data file involved?
Answer Hi,
Sure! Once you've broken the 'code' of how the data is stored you can determine which tool is the best to use to convert it for human consumption. At the bottom of the pile is to open the file in BINARY mode then splitting the file into records and records into individual pieces of data. If the data is stored as constant length fields then you can use a UDT (User Defined Type) (check help under TYPE).
Sorry, Anthony, but I can't be more specific but you're not giving me much to work with here. :)
