Using VB6 for CGI for the 1st time

[sabzoo]

I want to use VB6 for developing a CGI application but the problem is that I have never used VB6 before, except for creating the very simple programs ( calculators etc). I need a friendly tutorial or starting tips. A step wise procedure for creating a CGI that prints hello world only would be great help.

[shunt]

CGI is server side C++ used in web applications. I would asume that ASP is what you really want to be using in this case.

If you want to join the 21st century, you can even try web services....

[sabzoo]

What i really want to do is use the CGI for serial communication (RS232) at the server side and send commands through the internet. Now what do you suggest?

[shunt]

Oh! Ok.... Thats actually an interesting one....

There are many ways to skin a cat...

If you use ASP pages, you can still use the MSCOMM control to communicate with the serial port. The downside would be that you would not be able to keep the connection open. The client would have to issue a command to the ASP page, then the command would have to be executed by the ASP page using the MSCOMM control and then the result will be returned by the page. At this point the connection will be closed again.

There are other methods if you like...

[agmorgan]

The Common Gateway Interface can be implemented in many programming language, although it is not often that you see it implemented in VB.

However, that is exactly what I choose to do as it saves me learning Perl or some other language.

A guy called Kevin O'Brien has created a couple of modules to allow you to interface with STDIN and STDOUT

http://home.netcom.com/~obrienk/

[Xenutec]

You say CGI is for C++ only but your infact wrong.

I have written my own programming language in Visual Basic 6, I created an interpreter which works with IIS 6, Apache and Abyss webservers to serve pages written in my language.

The key to CGI is command line input and STDOUT (standard output) to return the result in this case to the webserver.

People say VB6 is limiting in what you can do there quite wrong with a bit of imagination you can do most things c++ can do. Obviously exept things like assembly code etc.

[CAVU]

I am having a problem with a console program using FSO. It works great on the local machine, but if I put it on the Local PC with IIS installed and run as a script, it runs but can not find the data files because the program appears to be downloading before running and setting up a temproary folder on the local PC. That folder is what is returned when using app.path.

I tried changing the server to allow both script and executeables but that throws errors that I am not using http headers etc. I really only want to send output to the console and not serve a page. But even so, this approach can not find the data files on the server either. Any ideas?