Accessing online database

[RingoStar]

Hi Guys

I am new to VB and currently just learning VB 2005. I have a little project that I want to work on, since music is also my passion. I want to write a script that I can use to organize my mp3 files by checking their id3 tag info and comparing it to the online music data base at www.freedb.org. I have been looking at their how to page at http://www.freedb.org/en/application..._access.5.html but it doesn't seem to be something I am familiar with yet. Can any of you guys shed some light on this and or advise as to how to go about what I plan on achieving. I thought it would be simply accessing a database such as Access but I guess I was wrong.

Below I just cut and paste their full "How to do Remote Access"

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REMOTE FREEDB ACCESS
--------------------

In order to perform remote access of freedb servers, your software must be
able to communicate with a remote CD server system via TCP/IP. There are a
number of public freedb servers operating on the Internet. The current list
of public servers is listed on the freedb Web site at:

http://www.freedb.org

The current list of public servers may also be obtained programmatically
via the CDDBP "sites" command. The permanent server site freedb.freedb.org
has been established in order to provide a reliable source of server site
information via the "sites" command. This address may be safely hard-wired
into client software for this purpose.

There are two forms of remote access to freedb servers, CDDBP and HTTP.
(Alternatively freedb can be accessed via e-mail-mode, the e-mail-address for
this is freedb-query@freedb.org.)
All current freedb servers answer at IP port 8880 for CDDBP and port 80 for
HTTP access. The standard URL for access via http is
http://freedb_server/~cddb/cddb.cgi
There may be unofficial sites that deviate from these conventions, however.

You should make the freedb server host (or hosts) and port numbers
user-configurable in your software. Do not hard-wire the list of CD database
servers into your code. The list of active servers changes over time.

The CDDBP, HTTP and e-mail CDDB server protocols are described below in the
CDDB-protocol documentation.

The freedb entry returned from the server via a "cddb read" command is in the
format described in Appendix B below.

You may experiment with the freedb server by connecting to the IP port for the
server host via the "telnet" program, and then typing the CDDB protocol
commands by hand. For example:

telnet freedb.freedb.org 8880

connects you to the freedb server at freedb.freedb.org.

Some additional notes for accessing freedb over the Internet:

Your application should always specify the highest documented protocol level
when accessing freedb. The highest level currently specified is "6". Lower
protocol levels will work, but are only provided for compatibility with older
applications. If you do not use the highest available protocol level, certain
useful features will not be available to your application.

We consider the use of the "cddb query" command mandatory for all freedb
clients. It is not valid to issue a "cddb read" command without issuing a prior
"cddb query" and receiving a good response, as it may yield incorrect results.
In addition, it is required that clients support close matches (aka "fuzzy"
matches, or response code 211) and multiple exact matches (response code 210)
in response to a query.

The proper way to handle fuzzy matches and multiple exact matches is to present
the entire list of matches to the user and to let the user choose between them.
Fuzzy matches are listed in the order of best fit for the user's disc, so they
should be presented to the user in the order they are listed by the server.

When handshaking with the server via the "cddb hello" command, make sure to use
the proper arguments. The application name and version should be that of your
application, not "xmcd" or the name of another application.

Clients should not have a hard-coded list of remote server sites. These sites
are subject to change, so hard-coded lists of sites can become stale. The
"sites" command was created for clients to acquire a definitive list of valid
server sites worldwide. It is suggested that client applications acquire the
list when the program is first run, and offer an option to do so thereafter.
(It's not necessary or desirable to do this every time the program is run.)
Because sites do come and go without notice sometimes, a permanent server
site, freedb.freedb.org, has been created for clients to download the site
list from. It is intended that clients use freedb.freedb.org to get the site
list, and failing that, to get the list from one of the other last known
public servers as a backup. All of the official freedb server sites will
contain a valid list of servers, though freedb.freedb.org is the only site
which is guaranteed to always exist.

We do strongly suggest that you provide your users with the capability of
choosing freedb server sites as described above. However, for some applications
this may not be feasible. If you do not wish to offer this functionality, you
may safely hard-code "freedb.freedb.org" in your application as the sole freedb
site to access. This will deprive your users of the option to choose a site
near their locale for optimal response, but that is your choice.

##################################################

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Johnny

[echemistry]

Originally Posted by RingoStar

Hi Guys

I am new to VB and currently just learning VB 2005. I have a little project that I want to work on, since music is also my passion. I want to write a script that I can use to organize my mp3 files by checking their id3 tag info and comparing it to the online music data base at www.freedb.org. I have been looking at their how to page at http://www.freedb.org/en/application..._access.5.html but it doesn't seem to be something I am familiar with yet. Can any of you guys shed some light on this and or advise as to how to go about what I plan on achieving. I thought it would be simply accessing a database such as Access but I guess I was wrong.

I'm using Nenest and using its API to integrate with my application:

http://www.nenest.com/_doc/Api.aspx

Good luck!