I have been a delphi programmer forever but I really haven't done any programming for web pages.  I'm working on a project that uses elevate db  and I being asked to make some of the data available via a secure HTTPS website. I really haven't done any of this before and I'm asking the best tech people I know of here in this forum for opinions on what would be the best thing for me to get this going quickly.

I do not have to make it very good looking. They are looking to do very simply queries - like retrieving demographic information on  a particular customer - but they want it secured with a separate username and password for each person and located on a secure website. Things like speed and general appearance don't seem to matter - it's a small database. It can be a very basic design.

I guess I'm asking for a place to start. Although I haven't used it much I do have access to Delphi 2007 - but if there were even an easier way to do this I'd like to know a bit about it.  I can upload the data anyway I want to - for example a CSV file - I'm just looking for a starting point.

Thanks Everyone!

Jeff,

There are number of way to accomplish this.

If you require access to live data then you would need to pick something that can interface with EDB:
- use the EDB PHP Extension that gives you native access to EDB database from PHP
- use EDB ODBC driver from any other environment (microsoft net usually)
- VCL for the web/Intraweb) - i think D2007 came with limited version of it - which allows you to write web apps using almost the same way you write win32 apps (there is a bit of a learning curve).

The main drawback of the above is that you must run them on windows so if you need to have this running on a web hosting service it might require some planning and/or switching hosting companies that support this.

If you don't require live access (or are ok reloading new data nightly or so) then you could even do something as simple as generate your CSV file and then write a PHP page(s) that simply read it when searching and display the row of data properly formatted on a web page - it's not scalable but very easy to get basic proof of concept going (php has tons of tutorials on web so just google learning php or such).  
Obviously any other web scripting language would work as well - microsoft asp, etc.

You can use any of the web rad tools available as well - from Embarcadero RadPHP to Morfik or RealStudio and others. I don't personally have much experience with any of those but others might have suggestions.

Most of these web scripting solutions provide an authentication framework so you should be able to manage the login requirement.

HTTPS will be slightly trickier as you would need a properly issued certificate installed on the web server - most web hosting companies provide this as standard option though.

If your needs are really modest at this point (say dozens people accessing this for basic lookup only) then i would likely start with a PHP+CSV file and use it as a way to learn some PHP in the process. All you need is a web server (Apache or IIS for example) + PHP and good text editor (Notepad even works) and will cost nothing except bit of your time.

Raul

Thank you Raul that's just what I'm looking for. I've been meaning to try to learn PHP so this is a good place to start.

Regards,
jeff


Raul wrote:

Jeff,

There are number of way to accomplish this.

If you require access to live data then you would need to pick something that can interface with EDB:
- use the EDB PHP Extension that gives you native access to EDB database from PHP
- use EDB ODBC driver from any other environment (microsoft net usually)
- VCL for the web/Intraweb) - i think D2007 came with limited version of it - which allows you to write web apps using almost the same way you write win32 apps (there is a bit of a learning curve).

The main drawback of the above is that you must run them on windows so if you need to have this running on a web hosting service it might require some planning and/or switching hosting companies that support this.

If you don't require live access (or are ok reloading new data nightly or so) then you could even do something as simple as generate your CSV file and then write a PHP page(s) that simply read it when searching and display the row of data properly formatted on a web page - it's not scalable but very easy to get basic proof of concept going (php has tons of tutorials on web so just google learning php or such).  
Obviously any other web scripting language would work as well - microsoft asp, etc.

You can use any of the web rad tools available as well - from Embarcadero RadPHP to Morfik or RealStudio and others. I don't personally have much experience with any of those but others might have suggestions.

Most of these web scripting solutions provide an authentication framework so you should be able to manage the login requirement.

HTTPS will be slightly trickier as you would need a properly issued certificate installed on the web server - most web hosting companies provide this as standard option though.

If your needs are really modest at this point (say dozens people accessing this for basic lookup only) then i would likely start with a PHP+CSV file and use it as a way to learn some PHP in the process. All you need is a web server (Apache or IIS for example) + PHP and good text editor (Notepad even works) and will cost nothing except bit of your time.

Raul