Software Integration

[CodingYoshi]

The company I work for uses a software built with COBOL. This software has no API and the only way to interact with it is through its GUI. My question is: Is there anyway to integrate with such a software without any help from the vendor? For example, if this COBOL software has tow text boxes to enter 2 numbers for addition and gives the answer, is there a way to enter the two numbers programmatically? I am not even so much concerned about the answer it provides but just to automate data entry. Please let me know if you need clarification.

CodingYoshi Visual Basic is for basic people, C# is for sharp people. Farid Tarin '07

[David Crow]

CodingYoshi wrote:

...is there a way to enter the two numbers programmatically? I am not even so much concerned about the answer it provides but just to automate data entry.

Can you use calls to FindWindow() and SendMessage()? Not bullet-proof, but it might get you by.

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[ThatsAlok]

use spy++ tool to find, does cobol window provide you any windo handle

[CodingYoshi]

ThatsAlok does cobol window provide you any windo handle

How do I find out? If I can get a handle to the window, how would I go about finding the child controls to send keystrokes to? For example, how do I control sending name to a text box which accepts name of new employee or something similar.

CodingYoshi Visual Basic is for basic people, C# is for sharp people. Farid Tarin '07