I've heard it said that cdo was not all that reliable. I've played with
blat, and it seems to work quite well. Which would be preferred? It's a
mission critical 24/7 application running VFP7 that sends out occaisonal
emails.

Re: blat versus cdo by Neil

Neil
Mon Dec 01 15:05:00 CST 2003

Yes, it was probably me who suggested CDO was unreliable. I think there are
two ways to use it for email, either through an existing email client or a
remote SMTP server. I was looking at the SMTP route, which requires calls to
'http://schemas.microsoft.com/...'. It seemed to fail on these calls - some
days it would work, other days it wouldn't. Using the blat dll works great
for me, just sending about 300 messages a day, and not failed yet.

Regards,
Neil

"Ook" <outlookexpress@nospam@embertsdotcom> wrote in message
news:uwsHanCuDHA.1224@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> I've heard it said that cdo was not all that reliable. I've played with
> blat, and it seems to work quite well. Which would be preferred? It's a
> mission critical 24/7 application running VFP7 that sends out occaisonal
> emails.
>
>



Re: blat versus cdo by Ook

Ook
Mon Dec 01 15:24:24 CST 2003

I saw those schemas.microsoft.com calls, and I'm very concerned about them.
Is that just what happens to be in the sample code? Was it written by
Microsoft, and therefore they can't imagine that anything.microsoft.com
would ever not work?

More importantly, is there any way around it? That seems like a very klugey
at best way to do things - what if, for example, your network has an smtp
server, but no access to schemas.microsoft.com? Or your internet connection
is down? Or some script kiddie is DDOSing Microsoft? I can think of a lot of
reasons not to use schemas.microsoft.com. I am a bit incredulous that this
is how it has to be done.

I found a blat library class, that seems to be a wrapper for the blat.dll.
Is that what you use?



"Neil Waterworth" <nospam-or-nwaterworth@lineone.net> wrote in message
news:eR5tJ7EuDHA.832@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> Yes, it was probably me who suggested CDO was unreliable. I think there
are
> two ways to use it for email, either through an existing email client or a
> remote SMTP server. I was looking at the SMTP route, which requires calls
to
> 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/...'. It seemed to fail on these calls -
some
> days it would work, other days it wouldn't. Using the blat dll works great
> for me, just sending about 300 messages a day, and not failed yet.
>
> Regards,
> Neil
>
> "Ook" <outlookexpress@nospam@embertsdotcom> wrote in message
> news:uwsHanCuDHA.1224@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > I've heard it said that cdo was not all that reliable. I've played with
> > blat, and it seems to work quite well. Which would be preferred? It's a
> > mission critical 24/7 application running VFP7 that sends out occaisonal
> > emails.
> >
> >
>
>



Re: blat versus cdo by Ook

Ook
Mon Dec 01 15:54:21 CST 2003

PS - looks like a bug in clog_assign:

IF VARTYPE(vnewval)="C" and (EMPTY( JUSTPATH(vnewval)) or
DIRECTORY(JUSTPATH(vnewval)))

This can blow up because at times vnewval will have a very long string in
it - and JUSTPATH() chokes on it and generates an error. I wonder if I have
an old verison of the library, because this bit me within the first 30
minutes of working with it.



"Neil Waterworth" <nospam-or-nwaterworth@lineone.net> wrote in message
news:eR5tJ7EuDHA.832@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> Yes, it was probably me who suggested CDO was unreliable. I think there
are
> two ways to use it for email, either through an existing email client or a
> remote SMTP server. I was looking at the SMTP route, which requires calls
to
> 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/...'. It seemed to fail on these calls -
some
> days it would work, other days it wouldn't. Using the blat dll works great
> for me, just sending about 300 messages a day, and not failed yet.
>
> Regards,
> Neil
>
> "Ook" <outlookexpress@nospam@embertsdotcom> wrote in message
> news:uwsHanCuDHA.1224@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > I've heard it said that cdo was not all that reliable. I've played with
> > blat, and it seems to work quite well. Which would be preferred? It's a
> > mission critical 24/7 application running VFP7 that sends out occaisonal
> > emails.
> >
> >
>
>



Re: blat versus cdo by Neil

Neil
Mon Dec 01 16:13:56 CST 2003

> I saw those schemas.microsoft.com calls, and I'm very concerned about
them.
> Is that just what happens to be in the sample code? Was it written by
> Microsoft, and therefore they can't imagine that anything.microsoft.com
> would ever not work?
>
> More importantly, is there any way around it? That seems like a very
klugey
> at best way to do things - what if, for example, your network has an smtp
> server, but no access to schemas.microsoft.com? Or your internet
connection
> is down? Or some script kiddie is DDOSing Microsoft? I can think of a lot
of
> reasons not to use schemas.microsoft.com. I am a bit incredulous that this
> is how it has to be done.
>

I agree with you, assuming this is the only way to use it. I'm not sure what
the schema calls send back. It brings back memories of when I was trying to
make sense of someone's web services/SOAP specifications a couple of years
ago with VFP6 (or maybe it was Perl). Perhaps someone else can add more
clarity to this.

> I found a blat library class, that seems to be a wrapper for the blat.dll.
> Is that what you use?
>

Yes, I use a wrapper class written by Josh Assing,
http://www.jassing.com/vfp.htm. Makes things very simple.

set safety off
set classlib to blat
ox = createobject("blat")
** change these **
ox.cserver = "mail.server.com"
ox.cfrom = "me@myisp.com"
ox.cbody = "My message"
ox.csubject = "My subject"
ox.cto = "you@yourisp.com"
**
ox.Send()

Had to make a couple of minor changes to the class compiling a project where
spaces were included in the project path, but no problems other than that.

Regards,
Neil

>
>
> "Neil Waterworth" <nospam-or-nwaterworth@lineone.net> wrote in message
> news:eR5tJ7EuDHA.832@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > Yes, it was probably me who suggested CDO was unreliable. I think there
> are
> > two ways to use it for email, either through an existing email client or
a
> > remote SMTP server. I was looking at the SMTP route, which requires
calls
> to
> > 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/...'. It seemed to fail on these calls -
> some
> > days it would work, other days it wouldn't. Using the blat dll works
great
> > for me, just sending about 300 messages a day, and not failed yet.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Neil
> >
> > "Ook" <outlookexpress@nospam@embertsdotcom> wrote in message
> > news:uwsHanCuDHA.1224@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > > I've heard it said that cdo was not all that reliable. I've played
with
> > > blat, and it seems to work quite well. Which would be preferred? It's
a
> > > mission critical 24/7 application running VFP7 that sends out
occaisonal
> > > emails.
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>



Re: blat versus cdo by Neil

Neil
Mon Dec 01 16:33:22 CST 2003

> PS - looks like a bug in clog_assign:
>
> IF VARTYPE(vnewval)="C" and (EMPTY( JUSTPATH(vnewval)) or
> DIRECTORY(JUSTPATH(vnewval)))
>
> This can blow up because at times vnewval will have a very long string in
> it - and JUSTPATH() chokes on it and generates an error. I wonder if I
have
> an old verison of the library, because this bit me within the first 30
> minutes of working with it.
>
>

I don't think this class was intended as fully commercial (it's free, after
all). More a case of - this works for me, and use it if you want to. The
version I've got has a

"*To do: Modify this routine for the Assign method" comment at the beginning
of clog_assign, so I'm guessing Josh doesn't consider it a complete work
either.

As I suggested in my other post, it may need a bit of fine tuning.

Regards,
Neil

>
> "Neil Waterworth" <nospam-or-nwaterworth@lineone.net> wrote in message
> news:eR5tJ7EuDHA.832@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > Yes, it was probably me who suggested CDO was unreliable. I think there
> are
> > two ways to use it for email, either through an existing email client or
a
> > remote SMTP server. I was looking at the SMTP route, which requires
calls
> to
> > 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/...'. It seemed to fail on these calls -
> some
> > days it would work, other days it wouldn't. Using the blat dll works
great
> > for me, just sending about 300 messages a day, and not failed yet.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Neil
> >
> > "Ook" <outlookexpress@nospam@embertsdotcom> wrote in message
> > news:uwsHanCuDHA.1224@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > > I've heard it said that cdo was not all that reliable. I've played
with
> > > blat, and it seems to work quite well. Which would be preferred? It's
a
> > > mission critical 24/7 application running VFP7 that sends out
occaisonal
> > > emails.
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>



Re: blat versus cdo by Anthony

Anthony
Mon Dec 01 18:08:57 CST 2003

"Neil Waterworth" <nospam-or-nwaterworth@lineone.net> [WA] wrote:

>Yes, it was probably me who suggested CDO was unreliable. I think there are
>two ways to use it for email, either through an existing email client or a
>remote SMTP server. I was looking at the SMTP route, which requires calls to
>'http://schemas.microsoft.com/...'. It seemed to fail on these calls - some
>days it would work, other days it wouldn't. Using the blat dll works great
>for me, just sending about 300 messages a day, and not failed yet.

300, that's nothing.
As I've reported before, sent (unintentionally) 30,000 messages without a
problem (other than cleaning out the inbox of the recipient's account).

If you do send many messages, make sure you have a short delay (1-2 seconds)
between each one.
regards - anthony shipley

look, ma - no .sig

Re: blat versus cdo by Neil

Neil
Mon Dec 01 19:00:59 CST 2003


"Anthony Shipley" <astechsystems@iinet.net.au> wrote in message
news:ojlnsvs41gmluj2gifj7hb8ffi6bfv2vrp@4ax.com...
> "Neil Waterworth" <nospam-or-nwaterworth@lineone.net> [WA] wrote:
>
> >Yes, it was probably me who suggested CDO was unreliable. I think there
are
> >two ways to use it for email, either through an existing email client or
a
> >remote SMTP server. I was looking at the SMTP route, which requires calls
to
> >'http://schemas.microsoft.com/...'. It seemed to fail on these calls -
some
> >days it would work, other days it wouldn't. Using the blat dll works
great
> >for me, just sending about 300 messages a day, and not failed yet.
>

> 300, that's nothing.
> As I've reported before, sent (unintentionally) 30,000 messages without a
> problem (other than cleaning out the inbox of the recipient's account).
>
> If you do send many messages, make sure you have a short delay (1-2
seconds)
> between each one.
> regards - anthony shipley
>

Not tried 30,000 yet with a Windows solution. If I'm going for 30,000
messages, I use Linux, sendmail and a short Perl script. Churns through
about 6/sec, no problems - though it's through a dedicated internet based
server, so bandwidth is good. Standard message is about 50K HTML and
personalised on the fly. Ook was talking in terms of "a few occassional"
emails.

Regards,
Neil



Re: blat versus cdo by Ook

Ook
Wed Dec 03 11:27:19 CST 2003

Update. I scrapped blat.vcx, and wrote my own routines to manipulate
blat.dll. I looked at CDO, but CDO is such a kluge in comparison. So far so
good, emails are being sent with no problems.

"Neil Waterworth" <nospam-or-nwaterworth@lineone.net> wrote in message
news:%23xf$A$GuDHA.1764@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>
> "Anthony Shipley" <astechsystems@iinet.net.au> wrote in message
> news:ojlnsvs41gmluj2gifj7hb8ffi6bfv2vrp@4ax.com...
> > "Neil Waterworth" <nospam-or-nwaterworth@lineone.net> [WA] wrote:
> >

<snip>