corrupt MainMenu table

We have been using Optigold ISP for years and years now, and very
recently our MainMenu.fp5 table became corrupt. The oldest working
backup of the file that we have is over a year old. Our FileMaker
version is 5.5.

We are trying to restore the accounts that were added since the last
backup. We have most of the info we need stored separately in MySQL
tables which we hope to use to recreate the accounts. We managed to
get the customer IDs of the missing accounts out of the corrupted
file. We would very much like to be able to add these accounts back
to MainMenu.fp5 with their old customer IDs. So far, we have thought
of two options for this:

1. XML. Based on what I've read from the discussion lists, it should
be possible to push data to filemaker with xml. However, I have been
having a difficult time figuring out exactly how this would work. I
saw mention of a developer's guide in the list archives - would it be
possible to get a copy of that? Or is there some other resource I
could read to get more specific information on XML?

2. ODBC. It seems like we should be able to use perl and
DBI/DBD::ODBC on a windows machine to connect to filemaker. However,
we are getting a connect error -- not on the connect() function but on
the prepare() function when I try to prepare the first sql statement.
The DSN was created in the windows control panel. Does anyone have
any experience with the perl modules and connecting to filemaker?

Thanks for any advice,
Kristina

 

Ok... what file specifically am I looking for? The only documentation I see is the FM Pro 5.5 User's Guide.

 

I have done some simple work with XML, and yes I'm familiar with development generally.

I just asked the person responsible for maintaining Optigold where I should look for the documentation that came with Filemaker Unlimited, and he said he wasn't sure that he still has it.

 

Do you know where the docs that would have that information should be? i.e. Would they be on the machine that filemaker unlimited is running on?

Has anyone else on this forum been successful with using the xml interface? Or at least found the docs that document it?

I did write a script that uses LWP to post to FMPro, like so:

my $req = HTTP::Request->new(POST => 'http://server/FMPro');

$content="-db=MainMenu.fp5&-format=-dso_xml&-lay=web";
$content.="&Login=login&Customer+ID=11890&Password=password";
$content.="&zip+code=11111";
$content .= "&-new";

$req->content_type('application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
$req->content($content);


Which does seem to get somewhere, to an error code (102) indicating a missing field, which is not surprising. So at this point I think the specific information I need to proceed forward is: some documentation about how to use -format and -lay; documentation about what fields are required when adding a new record to MainMenu (which I think I should be able to get from the optigold ER diagram).

Thanks,
Kristina