people w/ no control over the DLL-source, unable to change behavior of DLL

people who don’t want to pass an input-parameter to the DLL, which will be filled w/ the result in most other cases

people who want to call a callback-function/sub inside Access

recommended reading:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms811463 or
http://oreilly.com/catalog/win32api/chapter/ch06.html

more reading:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2003/09/12/52976.aspx
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/string/bstrsproject1.aspx

my working sample:

Option Compare Database
Option Explicit

Declare Sub WebGISConn_init Lib "P:\doswin\LDA\IPFLink\20110920\IPFLink.dll" Alias "IPFLink_init" (ByVal WebGISConn_CallBack As Long)
Declare Sub WebGISConn_showFeaturesInIMS Lib "P:\doswin\LDA\IPFLink\20110920\IPFLink.dll" Alias "IPFLink_showFeatureIDStringWithInterfaceInIMS" (ByVal feats As String, ByVal interf As String)

Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (pDst As Any, pSrc As Any, ByVal ByteLen As Long)
Declare Function lstrlenA Lib "kernel32" (ByVal lpString As Long) As Long
'
' testwrapper for easy call from "immediate window"
'
Public Sub testWebGIS()
    Call initWebGIS
    Call openWebGIS(428300001)
End Sub
'
' this SUB will be called from an external DLL
' e.g. clicked on a button in firefox w/ webgis
'
Public Sub WebGISConn_CallBack(ByVal interf As Long, ByVal feats As Long)
    
    Dim idList As String
    Dim layerInterface As String
        
    On Error Resume Next
    
    Debug.Print "dll is calling ... " & LPSTRtoBSTR(interf) & LPSTRtoBSTR(feats)
    '
    ' TODO: open form w/ data
    '
End Sub
'
' open object in browser w/ webgis
'
Public Sub openWebGIS(ByRef Id As Variant)
    Dim idList As String
    Dim layerInterface As String
   
    idList = CStr(Id)
    layerInterface = "LDA_obertaegigeDenkmale"
        
    Call WebGISConn_showFeaturesInIMS(idList, layerInterface)
End Sub
'
' init DLL
' register access-callbackfunction
'
Public Sub initWebGIS()
    Call WebGISConn_init(AddressOf WebGISConn_CallBack)
End Sub

'
' convert C-null-terminated string from DLL to vba BSTR string
'
Function LPSTRtoBSTR(ByVal lpsz As Long) As String
 
' Input: a valid LPSTR pointer lpsz
' Output: a sBSTR with the same character array
 
Dim cChars As Long
 
' Get number of characters in lpsz
cChars = lstrlenA(lpsz)
 
' Initialize string
LPSTRtoBSTR = String$(cChars, 0)
 
' Copy string
CopyMemory ByVal StrPtr(LPSTRtoBSTR), ByVal lpsz, cChars
 
' Convert to Unicode
LPSTRtoBSTR = Trim0(StrConv(LPSTRtoBSTR, vbUnicode))
 
End Function

Public Function Trim0(sName As String) As String
   ' Right trim string at first null.
   Dim x As Integer
   x = InStr(sName, vbNullChar)
   If x > 0 Then Trim0 = Left$(sName, x - 1) Else Trim0 = sName
End Function

http://localhost/Symfony/web/config.php gives us:

Recommendations
...
1 .Install and enable a PHP accelerator like APC (highly recommended).
2. Install and enable the intl extension.
3. Set short_open_tag to off in php.ini*.

solution:
(1) install corresponding php_apc.dll, add extension=php_apc.dll to php.ini
(2) mod_intl.dll exist, enable it in php.ini, but you need to have to copy all icu*36.dll files from your-xampp-path\php to your-xampp-path\apache\bin
(3) bad default-xampp-php.ini, “short_open_tag” is set twice – once “off” and once “on” two lines later, comment the latter out

http://localhost/Symfony/web/config.php is still not satisfied:

Recommendations
...
1. Upgrade your intl extension with a newer ICU version (4+).

but after updating all perl-modules and installing the required and optional modules (if available for win32) checksetup.pl failed

#perl checksetup.pl
...
Invalid version format (negative version number) at Bugzilla/Install/Requirements.pm line ...

it’s a known bug and it’s already fixed and committed and should be included in future version (> 4.0.2).
until then you have to patch it yourself with: patch, v1 (925 bytes, patch)

#ppm repo add UWinnipeg http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/PPMPackages/12xx/
#ppm install mod_perl

<Directory "C:/dev/xampp/htdocs">
    #
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI

    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    AllowOverride All

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    
    ScriptInterpreterSource Registry-Strict

</Directory>

LoadFile "C:/usr/bin/perl512.dll"
LoadModule perl_module modules/mod_perl.so
#PerlPostConfigRequire "C:/dev/xampp/apache/conf/extra/startup.pl"
...

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.cgi\Shell\ExecCGI\Command]
@="C:\\usr\\bin\\perl.exe -T"

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type:text/html\n\n";
print "hello world";

  #ppm install HTML-Perlinfo

#!/usr/bin/perl

use HTML::Perlinfo;
use CGI qw(header);

$q = new CGI;
print $q->header;

$p = new HTML::Perlinfo;
$p->info_general;
$p->info_variables;
$p->info_modules;
$p->info_license;

…
and remember for all 64-versions of vista and se7en:

- turn off  ”digital driver signature enforcement” in bootmenu, every time you boot, se7en still complains (first) time with a popup “unsigned driver could not be loaded … blabla” but driver is loaded and running

- or use Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider (http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=dseo)

• v64sp1 and svr08-64 didn´t accept my last *.inf
• rewrote inf from scratch
• new inf works also with win xp sp 3 build 5508
• should also work with svr08-32, vista32(sp1), w2k
• see download section

http://www.schemionneck.de/d500/tlbblog/download/

w/ patch for:

• w2k/xp-kcomm-directio
• YANO-EXSTAND-LPT-mode
• ems 4in1 and datel par mode

by TLB rev. 2006/mar/20

w/ patch for:

• w2k/xp-kcomm-directio
• YANO-EXSTAND-LPT-mode
• release depends on TyRaNiD’s permission

by TLB rev. 2006/mar/11

• installed/tested webalizer
• replaced mysql v3 with v5 (still old php4)
• 1st post
• played around with blog