How can I access a Lotus Notes Database from PHP5

Question

I would like to access our Domino Databases from php. My php5 is running in an Linux environment OpenSuse and for development Debian based System. Domino Server 8.5.1 is also running on a OpenSuse Server.

Currently I'am accessing the Databases via parsing the web pages from Notes, but that is a horrible way to do that.

Are there any ways or ideas to access Notes an more comfortable way?

Answer 1

Yes, there are plenty of ways. You can use Domino Designer to write a web service on the Domino server to expose the data that you want, and access the service that from your PHP code. You can use REST APIs if your Domino server can be upgraded to 8.5.3 or higher. You might be able to install Domino on your OpenSuse server and have your PHP code invoke Java programs that use the Notes classes in Notes.jar to do the work, or you can actually do that without installing Domino, but you'll have to use the remote version of the classes in NCSO.jar and your server will have to enable CORBA. You can use ODBC and NotesSQL as discussed here. I'm listing that last even though you did put an ODBC tag on your question because Notes databases are not relational and I find thinking of them that way to be too limiting, but if your data fits a relational model and you're comfortable with it, then it might be your best choice.

Answer 2

What Richard said, except I would start with this link for REST APIs. That takes you to the latest product documentation. Richard's link takes you to a slightly outdated page on OpenNTF.