External ip address

[IT_boy]

I was wondering if there was a way that I could extract the external ip address (not the internal ip address). I'm doing this so that I can make a startup script which will always know where the client computer is located (I need to know what city the client computer is in). I was hoping to find that a way that is easiy scalable.

Edited May 10, 2006 by Guest
Removed Forum added stuff

[John Mark Osborne]

Get(HostIPAddress) will do the trick but you need FileMaker 8. I don't know if there is a way using FileMaker 6.

[Wim Decorte]

do you mean the external IP address of the user? You'll need some OS scripting for this. You could put a page on your web server with some PHP, JavaScript or VBscript on it to get the IP address of the connection, then from inside FM you need some applescript or VBscript to grab hit your webserver and grab the content of the web page.

There are other ways of doing this, but the web page approach is pretty stable.

[IT_boy]

I'm planning on using Filemaker 8 to get the external ip address. I don't think the Get(hostipaddress) function will work because I believe it gets your host internal ip address(correct me if I'm wrong).

As far the using the visual basic for applications or applescript (depending on what platform the user has), seems fine as the long as the method is scalable(any pc or mac can access the external ip address). I know that almost every Mac has applescript, but I don't know about vba for pc's.

Oh and of course the actually process of programming applescript or vba to get my external ip , I have no idea how to do. ( my brother does knows php the part though).

Thanks for your input