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The INX Generic HTTP Poster DLL is a simple component that provides the ability to perform HTTP Posts to webpages.
This is useful if you wish to communicate with Webpage applications from programmatic environments such as ASP or
Visual Basic.
In standard HTML, input from a visitor is typically handled by means of an HTML Form which is posted to a server-side
processing script. Forms consist of form elements which are given names and values. A typical form declaration might be
as follows:
<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="addclient.asp">
Client : <INPUT TYPE=TEXT SIZE=20 NAME="ClientName">
Address : <TEXTAREA NAME="Address" ROWS=3 COLS=30></TEXTAREA>
Tel : <INPUT TYPE=TEXT SIZE=15 NAME="Tel">
Invoice : <INPUT TYPE=RADIO NAME="inv" VALUE=0>No <INPUT TYPE=RADIO NAME="inv" value=1>Yes
<INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Send Form">
</FORM>
The above form submits 4 form elements to the server side script addclient.asp when the form submit button
is clicked. The element names are ClientName, Address, Tel and inv. The element values
are whatever the user had entered into the form with the exception of the inv element. The inv element
value will be either 0 or 1, depending on which radio button has been selected.
Now all of the above is old hat to web programmers. It is a basic construct that every web programmer knows off by
heart. Web Application users are also very familiar with filling in such Web forms. Sometimes however, you want
to post the form not from a browser and by a human, but from a piece of automated code. This is particulary
useful when you are writing automated programs that have to interface to an existing web application. Such programs
"fool" the Web Application into thinking that an HTML form was completed and submitted by a human with a webbrowser,
while in reality, it was done from an automated program using the INX Generic HTTP Component to perform the HTTP Posting.
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