ASP / Excel roundtrip

[JV]

Hi,

I'm researching how I can :
1- dynamically generate an Excel spreadsheet by querying a database on
an ASP page
* I understand how to do this

2- open this spreadsheet by a user (client side)
* I understand how to do this

3- allow this user to apply changes
* that's done via Excel.

4- post the changes (if any) back to my database

I am aware of the OWC and Excel objects I have at my disposal. I also
read an article how to query an Excel spreadsheet. This requires me to
1) define labels on the first row and
2) define a range I'd like to query.

My challenge is that users might add rows to the spreadsheet or even
insert new columns. In addition, the spreadsheet they're updating is
first generated by my ASP page. Hence, how can I dynamically add this
range to the generated spreadsheet (or could I define a 'template'
spreadsheet and use this each time I dynamically populate my
spreadsheet?

I guess I'm looking for a generic way of importing an entire worksheet
and then have my asp page parse and validate it.
Could anyone give me some pointers for #4?

I appreciate your help.

JV

 

[Tim Williams]

If you're allowing users to add rows or columns (and potentially also delete
them...) and then hoping to parse the information on the server you will
have a tough time unless you're able to protect certain aspects of the
worksheet from changes. The amount of validation code you'll end up writing
will be huge.

Why not just give the user a web interface to make changes?

Tim