[AccessD] Hooking into APIs of supplemental vendors

Stuart McLachlan stuart at lexacorp.com.pg
Sat Jul 6 19:23:18 CDT 2013


It's just like using the standard WIndows API.

They will provide you with one or more DLLs and documentation how how to call the 
functions in those DLLS.

A simple example is ending emails directly through an SMTP server from VBA.  I do that 
using the BLAT.DLL api. A typical bit of code would be:

DECLARE FUNCTION SendBlat LIB "blat.dll" ALIAS "Send" (BYVAL sCmd AS STRING) AS 
INTEGER  
...
strEmail =  = "StdMsg.txt -to " & strEmail & " -from admin at mycompany.com -subject " & _
    CHR$(34) &  strrSubject & CHR$(34) &  _
    " -organization ""MyCompany"" -hostname myMailer -server mail.mycompany. -log" & _     
"BLATLOG.TXT -noh" 
...
lngResult = SendBlat(strEmail)
...

A more complex one will involve Type Structures and more complex input and output 
paramters to the function(s) in the supplied DLL - but generally it's still very straight forward.

On 6 Jul 2013 at 16:26, William Benson (VBACreations. wrote:

> When a company offers a service - in my case, the company I am dealing with
> has offered to allow me to use their API to have my application submit MMS
> and SMS messages - I get a sense that I am supposed, as a programmer, to
> know how to make the features in their application(s) a part of the
> program(s) I write. I know this happens all the time in the integrative
> development marketplace, but since I have programmed in 95% VBA, I don't
> really have the foggiest idea what they are talking about when they say "Our
> API will do ______________ for you, feel free to download a free trial and
> ______________..." [get started using it??]
> 
> I assume maybe all their stuff is well documented, but I feel too slow and
> stupid to understand documentation anymore and the "getting up to speed"
> factor is in line with teaching an old dog new tricks. Are they simple
> tricks? In other words, is this all supposed to be like plug and play
> programming, or am I supposed to be learning entirely new platforms in order
> to get acquainted with different vendors' functionality? I suppose maybe it
> is a case by case thing?
> 
> 
> 
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