In my database, I use a calculated field to construct URLs (from names and cities) for switchboard.com which look like this:

http://switchboard.com/bin/cgiqa.dll?SR=&MEM=1&LNK=3:194&L=brown&F=w&T=fort%20smith&S=AR

Then using the OpenURL script step, I can query the switchboard site for address and phone number, which are returned on a web page.

Is it possible to get the entire text of the returned web page into another field? If so, I would work on parsing out the address, phone, etc., into their own separate fields. Switchboard.com does not offer free web services where this can be done with xml.

Panorama is able to do this, so it would be nice to be able to do in Filemaker.

Any suggestions?

it certainly can be done in filemaker.

In PHP you can access the calc field with the url, get the information from that url and place it into another field.

Do you have an example of this? I'm not familiar with PHP and wouldn't know how to begin. But i might could learn if I could see an example. :

Thanks for the reply!

No need for PHP (which isn't installed by default on Windows). You can use the native tools for that. Check the "Windows Automation" forum in the "VBscript repository" thread. There's a full example there...

I know this is an old post, but I am trying to do what you have already done, and I don't know how.

I would like to openurl and fetch ( & import if possible) the address, city, state, zip,phone number, fax number, and any contact info.

At the very least, if I could get it to open to the company name I entered, as your does, that would be great.

Thanks

You can do that all with FileMaker 8.5 without needing to resort to plugins, PHP etc. Use the WebViewer, assign an object name (e.g. "mywebpage") to it, and use a calculated field with the function GetLayoutObjectAttribute("mywebpage",content).

Edited December 12, 200619 yr by Guest