Re: PTK dll's & Libraries
Phil Sayers <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.windows.devel.dotnet.advanced |
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| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Please disregard. fat fingered a copy & paste. -----Original Message----- From: Discussion of advanced .NET topics. [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Phil Sayers Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 12:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ADVANCED-DOTNET] PTK dll's & Libraries Hi Jeff, Thanks for the info, that's saved me having to futz around with some file placements. A somewhat unrelated question, and more a curiosity. Do you provide the data files as .DBF becuase we requested that file format at some point in time? Or is that your default filetype? Phil -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:07 PM To: Phil Sayers Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Mark's current process relies on the Zip-to-District file (al110zdr.dbf, az110zdr, etc.) being available there. The below proposed process does not require the Large Zip-To-District file ever. No download or anything ever. Just the smaller legislator files, which are updated more frequently. Here is the way I would do it. This is short hand. I'm sure you will be okay with it. But let me know I you have any questions. Current Process: PTK.SearchAddress(addr1, addr2, city, state, zip5, zip4) PTK.GetZipCode5(zip5out) PTK.GetZipCode4(zip4out) DMDS.Zip-to-District file Lookup. DMDS.Legislator Data Lookup. END Proposed Process: PTK.SearchAddress(addr1, addr2, city, state, zip5, zip4) PTK.GetZipCode5(zip5out) PTK.GetZipCode4(zip4out) PTK.SearchCD(zip5out, zip4out) PTK.GetFedHouCode(FhCodeHold) && (6 position field, first 3 fields in the LEGIDYY file) PTK.SearchSU(zip5out, zip4out) PTK.GetStaSenCode(SsCodeHld) && (6 position field, first 3 fields in the LEGIDYY file) PTK.,SearchSL(zip5out, zip4out) PTK.GetStaHouCode(ShCodeHld) && (6 position field, first 3 fields in the LEGIDYY file) DMDS.Legislator Data Lookup. END Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 3:32 PM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Hi Jeff... I've done coding our zipcode update/correction piece, and moving on to the legislative district processing. I just wanted to clarify some of the language in your email below..... when you said "I believe the way Mark Breen has his application currently set up is to use the PTK to obtain the zip+4 for an address, ONLY. He then looks up the aip+4 in the raw data. This should be changed to look up the Zip+4 using the PTK." Do you mean that I should use the PTK to grab the legislative information? (the way it's written indicates I should lookup the Zip+4 using the PTK, but I'm already doing that to get the Zip+4 for an address) Phil -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 12:23 PM To: Phil Sayers Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Great, It's good to work with you. Some other notes; 1) The data can be placed anywhere but you will need to keep the path names, in the NATIONAL.DIR and in the Initialize() function, to the older DOS naming conventions of 8 characters with no spaces. 2) The PTK update process consists of overlaying the data files (now located in "C:\ptk108nw") once a quarter. The software will not need to be re-installed. There is an expiration date in the data and a message will be displayed once you reach the date. So it is important to keep up on the updates. Also, sometimes WINDOWS does not throw up a message letting you know the file is in use, so it is best to remove the files and make sure they do not exist before copying in the new files. The PTK data is created from the DMDS data. The DMDS data is raw data files. I have attached a data description document for the DMDS data. I believe the way Mark Breen has his application currently set up is to use the PTK to obtain the zip+4 for an address, ONLY. He then looks up the aip+4 in the raw data. This should be changed to look up the Zip+4 using the PTK. The Legislator Data portion of the DMDS data is updated monthly. Although the Legislator Data can be obtained from the PTK, it is best to get this Legislator Data from the DMDS data for current up-to-date data. If you have any questions please let me know. Also the older 16-Bit PTK that Mark is using in his current application is set up exactly the same. The function declarations are different though. Same functions and same parameters passed. He is currently having an issue with Alabama you may be able to assist him in resolving the problem. Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 11:38 AM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Hi Jeff, Thanks to a restart of IIS I got the ASP pages working just fine. -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 11:01 AM To: Phil Sayers Subject: FW: PTK dll's & Libraries Phil, Were you able to make the changes in the ASP program? Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeff S. Kelley Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 10:00 AM To: 'Phil Sayers' Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Great, Now the next step tells the PTK where the zip code and legislator data is located. These are the LDSAPI01.LDS and LDSAPI02.LDS files are located. This is done through the PTK Initialize() function. This function only needs to be called once to create an instance of the PTK object in memory. Once the PTK object is destroyed (by removing the form or object that created it, or, calling the PTK Terminate() ) you would need to call the PTK Initialize() again. When you installed the PTK sample ASP code was installed as well. Please edit the "OfficialLookup.ASP" program and change the path passed by the initialize function from "D:\LDSDATA" to "C:\ptk108nw". This ASP program should be located in "C:\Program Files\LDS\LDSWebAPI\Test Apps\ASP". Once this is done please call me at the number listed below. Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 9:44 AM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries done -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 9:38 AM To: Phil Sayers Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Great, There are two parts to identifying where the data files are located. These are the files you placed in "C:\ptk108nw". This is simple but very important. Please keep this or future reference. The first part is to tell the PTK where the address correction files are located. These are the NATIONAL.* data files. When you installed the PTK some files were place in the windows/system32 directory. One of these files is NATIONAL.DIR. You can edit this file with WordPad and globally change the default drive and directory (set to D:\LDSDATA, I believe). Please change this to the location where you placed the files "C:\ptk108nw". And save the changes. Please let me know once you have done this. Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 9:29 AM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries yes, It's all setup in component services. -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 9:24 AM To: Phil Sayers Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Phil, As per my instructions below, you were supposed to let me know once you installed the PTK software be doing anything else so we could finish the install and setup. Were you able to register the object in component services as outlined in LDSWEBAPI.doc? Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 8:09 AM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Ok. I have it installed. I threw together a quick application in visual studio and I can reference the dll and see all the functions available. So I assume that the local path to the data files is hardcoded somwhere in the dll? Is there any flexibility there? Some of our customers have our application installed on C:\... and others use D:\.... or even F:\.... Can network paths be used so I can create a shared folder to normalize the path across all of our customers? -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 4:06 PM To: Phil Sayers Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Phil, Please find attached zipped installation files. Please unzip them to a directory where you can install the PTK. Click on setup and let the installation run. After the installation has completed, follow the instructions in the attached LDSWEBAPI document to setup Component services. THERE IS ONE CORRECTION IN THE DOCUMENT! ON PAGE 9 OF 17. DO NOT SELECT "INTERACTIVE USER" CHANGE THIS TO "THIS USER" AND SUPPLY THE ADMINISTRATOR USERNAME AND PASSWORD. There are a couple of other changes to configure this for you. Please let me know once these steps have been completed and we will be able to finish the installation and set up. Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 3:08 PM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Hi jeff, I have the files extracted to "C:\ptk108nw" -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 2:30 PM To: Phil Sayers Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries We do not have a .net version only an ASP version. So here we go. Please download this data PTK data set and place it in its own folder like D:\LDSDATA File Link: http://webdownload.aristotle.com/DMDS108/ptk108nw.zip Username: webget Password: $uppli54 The password is case sensitive. Once you download and extract the data files please send me drive and folder name where the files reside. Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 ------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 1:56 PM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries I was (mistakenly) assuming the dll's were distributed wit the data... We're using Microsoft Visual Studio.Net 2008 with VB.Net 2.0. For now we're going to stick with: The Alabama data gets put on Alabama's internal servers, and we will put webservices on that server to expose the dll functions to LAN clients at Alabama, so everything for Alabama is self-contained with their network. -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 1:48 PM To: Phil Sayers Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Hi Phil, The last we spoke I informed you there are three different 32-Bit PTKs. A True Windows DLL An Active X Version An ASP version When I asked how you were going to implement the new software, (internet version, or, desktop version) you were still considering your options. As I stated, the data is specific to the license. So Alabama only gets access to Alabama through the data. What programming development environment will you be using? As far as for a ZIP vs an EXE I do not see why the fulfillment would not be able to do that. Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 ---------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 1:35 PM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Hi Jeff, Mark helped me get my hands on the data files from this url: http://webdownload.aristotle.com/CDS/CDS.exe It is a self extracting .exe. Is there any chance this stuff is available as a plain .zip file(s), and not self-extracting? Its much easier to automate the downloads when I don't have to spawn an external process to "execute" the .exe and wait for it to finish and handle any external errors. And... how do I get my hands on the 32bit dll file? I didn't see it included in the download. Thanks Phil -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 12:29 PM To: Phil Sayers Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Okay, let me help with the Aristotle (LDS) products. Here is how the District Match Data Set (DMDS) and Programmers Tool Kit (PTK) files are set up and their relationship. The DMDS is a set of five raw data files. I have attached a data description document for the DMDS. The five files are listed below along with additional information not covered in the document. Zip Code-to-District. The ZtoD file contains the 9-Digit Zip Codes to Legislative Districts. This file will be named us108zdr.dbf for a nationwide file (us = Natiowide, 108 = Release 10.8, zdr = Zip-to-District ranged format). The next file will be us110zdr for release 11.0. A single state ZtoD file, will contain the state abbreviation. Like for Alabama the name will be al108zdr.dbf. I believe the attached document shows the expanded file, the only difference is the ranged file contains a beginning zip+4 and an ending zip+4. Legidyy this will be named Legidyy.dbf for the nationwide data or alLegyy.dbf for Alabama. Census. This file will ne named Census.dbf for the nationwide data or alCensus.dbf for Alabama. LDcode. This file will be named LDCode.dbf for the nationwide data or alLDcod.dbf for Alabama. Cmtte. This file will be named Cmtte.dbf for the nationwide data or alCmtte.dbf for Alabama. Those are the 5 files that make up the DMDS. The last four are delivered monthly so you can incorporate the latest Legislator Data changes each month. Now for the PTK. The PTK contains all of the data in the DMDS but the data is formatted differently. The data is accessible only through function calls. The DMDS data is compressed and added to the LDSAPI01.LDS and the LDSAPI02.LDS files. And, the PTK contains files necessary for address correction to obtain a Zip+4. This data is updated each quarter. Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 -------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 11:42 AM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Ok, Now i"m starting to see how this works. Mark didn't give me much other than your email address, some chatter about 16bit and 32bit dll's, and our end-user documentation that says "click here to update your zip4". We'd have no problem distributing the data files to our customers, its something we can either [1]include in their standard monthly update [2]auto-download with a tool/utility that we place on their server. Typically we have admin rights on our customers' servers so getting a dll registered & installed is easy enough. -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 11:29 AM To: Phil Sayers Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Thanks Phil, Those were my thoughts as well. The data is what locks the end user into a specific State. For example the Alabama Association only has access to Alabama data. I will need to run this through sales and licensing. One set of data on a locally managed server would be a lot easier to manage. Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 ------------------------------------------------------------ From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 11:14 AM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Hi jeff, I'm still working out the overall function & flow of how to do this in our .Net product. Our old product is essentially a client-only application that talks directly to the central database. So the dll and everything needed for the LDS processing was put on the end user computer and used locally to update the central database. Each of our customers hosts their own database in-house. With the .Net product we have a few different ways to get those same updates into the central database. The .Net product is client/server within each customers LAN. Additionally the .Net product can talk to secure webservices that we can host on our own website. So I'm juggling a few options in terms of where to store the data, where to install the dll(s) you provide, where to put the code that wil call into those dlls, basically where to put each piece of the puzzle, and at the same time reduce the potential for user created problems. For example. Downloading the datafiles onto our server, and installing your dll(s) on our server, and exposing the dll functionality through some secure webservices (that I would need to create) that only our customers can call into. This would reduce the "operator error" problems we have and remove the need for our customers to manually download the files. We can put windows services on our customers servers to call into our webservices for zip4, address correction and legislative info on a new-record and edit-record basis. We can have our customers self-host the webservices on their servers. Lots of options, I'm just not sure what sort of impact each one would have in terms of how much you charge us, and what licensing/distribution rules you have. Thanks Phil -----Original Message----- From: Jeff S. Kelley [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 10:45 AM To: Phil Sayers Cc: Mark Breen Subject: RE: PTK dll's & Libraries Hi Phil, We have the following 32-Bit versions of the Programmers Tool Kit. A true windows DLL, an ActiveX DLL, and an ASP version. We not have a .NET version. Will you be developing the new 32-Bit version for use on the internet? Sincerely, Jeff S. Kelley Aristotle International, Inc. Toll Free: (877) 537-7050 Fax: (717) 248-2182 ---------------------------------------------------------- From: Phil Sayers [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 7:53 AM To: Jeff S. Kelley Subject: PTK dll's & Libraries Hi Jeff, I work for Mark Breen at Custom Data Systems. We are re-writing our Association Manager software in .Net, and I've been tasked with the Zip4 & legislative demographics items. I understand that Mark has been using a 16-bit dll to work with the zip4 & legislative demographics datafiles that are downloaded from your ftp site. According to Mark you've been emailing the dll file as we request it. Is there a 32-bit version published that I can get my hands on? If there is a .Net assembly that performs the same functions that would be the best option for us. Do you publish the dll's on your website for download? Thanks Phil Sayers Custom Data Systems =================================== View archives and manage your subscription(s) at http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives =================================== View archives and manage your subscription(s) at http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives