How to use Microsoft OLEDB Provider for Internet Publishing

[SK]

I have to do "Mail Merge" on Word 2003 and my Data Source is residing on the
WebServer.
I find that the OLEDB Provider for Internet publishing can get the files
from Server through WebDAV.
I tried to setup a test virtual directory and on IIS 5.0 on XP and tried to
connect to it. I have a datasource file in an HTML file.

ON word, I clicked on "Open Data Soruce->New Source ->Other/Advanced"
Now select "OLE DB Provider for Internet Publishing".
In the connection tab, I give the details of the WebDAV URL.
Test the connection and click OK

Using fiddler, I can see that the follwing command is issues:
PROPFIND /TestVirDir
and return value is 207.

But there was no GET command issued and hence the source was not fetched.

Please help on how to get this WebDAV stuff working with Word.

 

[SK]

Got it partially.
1. Enable directory browsing for the WebDAV folder.
Then it will list all the files in the folder and you can select the file in
next step.
But now I tried an html file and a text file as data sources.
Html has a table, first row has columns and second row has values.
If I open it as data source directly from local machine, it works fine.
But if I open the same file from the "ODC" that was created , it gives error:
Record 1 contained too few data fields

Even a TXT file gave the same kind of error.
Any idea?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

My understanding of the OLE DB Provider for Internet Publishing is that
it provides the sort of information you would expect to get in a
directory listing - in other words, it doesn't retrieve the file; it
retrieves information about the file. (I think it is used by Frontpage,
for example).

So AFAIK you cannot get anything more than that from it. But I could
well be wrong about that.

If it /can/ get the file itself, then you have to ask what "Command"
Word would need to send to the provider to get the data, because Word
will expect to send a command - typically, but not necessarily, a SQL
SELECT statement.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk