I am trying to figure out if it is possible to capture data by feeding it through two identical forms at the same time - each form owned owned by individual parties. Let me explain: There is a website owned by another company that a user subscribes to (pays to belong to) where they input data daily. They use a form on this website to enter in the data. It is for legal updates, briefs, public notices, etc. The subscriber of this site (the one who pays to belong) wants to be able to only enter in the information once and have it go to not only this site, but to a new one. The current site owner will not allow access to anyone once the data is entered. Is there a way to create a "bridge" or intermediary form that allows the user to input info once, but send it to two places? something in-between or ontop of the existing form? The desired result is to make it seem like data is being entered and sent normally, but going to two different places... I don't know what type of programming you call this ???
Yes its very much possible.. Assuming Site 1 is under your control.. we first validate the form input within Site 1, store the form submission result and then create a cURL post to the Site 2's form processing script.
that's the problem - site 1 is not under our control - it is owned by someone else. Let me clarify that - we have control of the user inputting the data, but the site that they are currently posting to is owned by someone else. We want to avoid double entry of data to get all of the same info into a new site owned by us. still possible?
Yes as you have the control on the server where the input form is located.. you can have a custom script written to capture the input data, store it wherever you want to and then post it to the target sites.
It is most likely possible, it will depend on how much security is running on Site 1 and Site 2 plus if you truly mean they have to be submitted at the same time or if you really mean just type it once and then submit it to the two but they can be sequencial (but no retyping). The norm would be to create a site 3 with the data capture form and once site 3's server receives the form it sends it off to the other 2 site's servers. If it has to be concurrent then you open up the world of multithreading, which does make it more complex to programme and therefore expensive. If sequential is ok then it may be a relatively simple process as the server does one then the other. Remember however if either site 1 or site 2 changes their programming at any point in the future then Site 3 would also have to change to reflect the differences.