Internet class differences...

I've tried this on another group without any resolution, so let me see if anyone here has an answer - please! ;-)

I have a database with which I must communicate queries via a web-based interface. The queries are not in a standard format, but involve strings such as

....&fieldA=value1&fieldA=value2&...fieldA=valuej&fieldB=valueK...

being sent to the web interface.

This was started as a C++.NET project for some other reasons unrelated to the networking. Initially a WebClient class was used. An object was instantiated and the 'name-value' method of sending data was used.

This worked fine for submitting the query. The result of the query is an HTML page returned (from the server)containing some parameters and a javascript method that opens a new window with the results... the parameters are sent to the new page requesting the results (via a sessionID cookie and sequence number). So, after sending the initial query, the reply is parsed to obtain the new page and sequence number. The same object - the WebClient - is redirected to the page and retrieves the query results.

This all works fine for simple queries - where fieldA has only a single value required. However, if fieldA requires multiple values, the WebCLient (actually the name-value collection of the WebClient) believes that multiple values should be sent as

....&fieldA=value1,value2,value3...

which causes the query processor at the database end to choke.

I have not found any means of using the WebCLient that allows me to send all of the selections I need for the queries without reformatting something in the query. So, I tried the HTTPWebRequest class.

The HTTPWebRequest object does a dandy job of allowing me to format my queries so that the database at the other end (and all the query processing) is happy - I have tried a number of complicated ones and always receive the 'redirect' javascript response indicating that the query processed properly.

However, there seems to be no way to redirect the HTTPWebCLient class to a new page, so a new object needs to be created. I use the same cookiecollection for both the initial query request and the second results request (two different HTTPWebCLient objects) so that the second object obtains the sessionID cookie from the first one. However, it does not retrieve the results but, instead, is sent to a login page from which it is impossible to retrieve the results (the login initiates a new session, new sessionID, therefore makes access to the results impossible).

I have used an ethernet sniffer to inspect the packets from the WebClient (which works completely with simple queries) and the HTTPWebRequest (which submits the query successfully but seems unable to submit the cookie and sequence number properly to retrieve the results). The only difference I can see in the packets is that the WebCLient orders the header values slightly differently (the same values are present but their order is different from the HTTPWebRequest ordering of the same values) and the WebClient returns not just the cookie name-value combination, but also the 'Path=/' parameter from the internal cookie. The HTTPWebRequest has the Path member set properly (to '/') but does not return this with the cookie to the redirected server page - only the name-value members are sent.

I don't know if the order or the lack of a 'Path=/' in the header/cookie causes the failure, but something is doing it and I can't figure out how to change the behavior...

I'm tearing my hair out on this and looking for any help/ideas.

Thanks a lot for anything to follow up on! 8-)

.

Relevant Pages

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