Downloading mystery

[Dave Cragg]

On 17 Nov 2005, at 01:42, Bruce A. Pokras wrote:

> I am trying to script the downloading of European patents from the  
> European Patent Office's server. They provide a sample URL to use  
> for that purpose, but instead of the patent, I instantly get a zero  
> size file. I've tried it with and without URLencode. However,  
> scriptiing with revGoURL works fine with the same URL to open the  
> patent in my browser. Any ideas? The script I am using goes like this:
>
> on mouseup
> put "https://publications.european-patent-office.org/ 
> PublicationServer/getpdf.jsp?cc=EP&pn=1502503&ki=A1" into theURL
>    put URL theURL into URL "binfile:1502503.pdf"
> end mouseup
>
> Could it be that Rev is allergic to JavaServer Pages? I hope not.  
> Thanks for any help that you might be able to give.

<mauling_by_sheep>
This is a plea, not just to Bruce, but to all of you who do things  
like this, most of whom should know better.

When you deal with URLs, especially internet URLs, things sometimes  
go wrong. Often these things are outside of your control, such as the  
network being busy, being given the wrong URL by your boss, your  
ISP's data center being struck by an asteroid, or a dud hard drive.

It's important that you check that things happen as expected. So  
every time you make a url request, always (i.e. always) check "the  
result".

In the example above, there are two url requests in the same line. So  
should you check the result twice? I'd say "yes". Something like this:

put URL theURL into theData
put the result into theRes
if theRes <> empty then
   answer theRes ## or whatever you need to do
else
   put theData into URL "binfile:1502503.pdf"
   put the result into theRes
   if theRes is not empty then
     answer theRes ## or whatever you need to do
   else
     ##carry on
   end if
end if

</mauling over>

Apart from that, I think Ken's pointer to  "libURLSetSSLVerification"  
will probably work. This will mean that you won't be able to  
authenticate the remote server. Perhaps OK for the patent office, but  
probably not a good idea for doing bank transactions. The alternative  
is to set the sslCertificates property to an appropriate certificates  
file.

Cheers
Dave