Hi,

I would appreciate help with the following. I would like to be able to
initiate a perl script that is residing on a linux server from an Excel
workbook. I am working on the Excel workbook in Windows. I would
appreciate any pointers, sample code for accomplishing this in VBA or
some other method. The perl script that I am trying to call will take
the information from a mysql database and update the Excel sheet. The
script will also take information from the Excel sheet and update the
database. thanks very much.

It seems to me that there are two main branches of solutions for me.
One is to set up a web server on the linux box and use my perl script
as a CGI. I would appreciate it if somebody could provide some sample
code on using the HTTP VB objects within VBA to call a script on the
linux box.
I think one question that I need to find out is how do I go about
finding out if I am able to make http requests from within VBA?

After, being able to proceed through this CGI path what points or
examples should I consider when thinking about security?

This CGI option seems to be suitable for me since I already have a
linux web server set up and one of the reasons I want to keep perl on
the linux server is that users of the application do not need to have
perl installed on their computer.

The other option that seems to be popular is the use of ODBC. I have
found from some sources that if I go through this ODBC route that I
would need to install perl on the windows side. Is this true?

What would be the deciding factors in figuring out which route to go
whether it be using CGI or ODBC? Basically in the application I want to
develop would allow a user within Excel will have a worksheet and be
able to press a button to start a process where one column in the
worksheet will be sent to query the mysql database to retrieve about
six columns of data to update the Excel worksheet. As well, about two
of the columns will be used to update the mysql database. Sometimes the
columns will be about 30 rows but it is possible that I will be working
with about 10 000 rows. I am concerned about speed but I think that the
slowness could possibly be obviated by precomputing the sql queries and
placing the values in a table since I already know what the queries
will be most of the time.

thanks very much


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