Helping ordinary people create extraordinary websites!

Web Database Access from Desktop Applications

By Michael J. Ross
2008-05-06

Web Database Access from Desktop Applications
There may be growing interest in moving computer applications from the desktop to the Web. But desktop applications are still a huge market, whose demise has been prematurely reported by the media in the past, and will most likely be reported in the future. In addition, for many domain areas, a Web browser — even for an AJAX-powered site — will be insufficient for many application needs. Microsoft is just one of several companies experiencing an assortment of technical problems with Web-based applications and software as a service (SaaS). These problems include server outages and other technical glitches.

With desktop application usage and development still going strong, every Web developer, at some time or another in their career, may encounter a problem that has long plagued desktop applications in the Internet age: If the database contains information needed by the desktop application, but the database is hosted in a Web account that does not allow remote procedure calls (RPCs) — and most of them do not allow them — then how can the desktop application communicate with the database?

There are countless situations in which this need arises. For instance, you may have created a proprietary desktop application for customers who pay for a license to use it for a limited amount of time. You probably also want to allow prospects to try your program for free, during a trial period, so they can decide if it is worth investing in a license. So how can you set up both your application and your database so that the former can query the latter to obtain the user's expiration date?

In this tutorial, we will explore a straightforward solution that I devised, and that you can use in your own systems. We will be using MySQL, but the principles apply to any other online RDBMS. The database access script and desktop application both utilize PHP, but this technique works for any desktop language that can access Web pages.




Tutorial pages:

 2 Votes

You might also want to check these out:


Leave a Comment on "Web Database Access from Desktop Applications"
You must be logged in to post a comment.

Link to This Tutorial Page!
GET OUR NEWSLETTERS