How to 3270 screen-scrape from a Linux-based web app [closed]

Question

I have a LAMP (PHP) web app which need to interface with programs on an IBM 3270 mainframe (via Microsoft SNA Server). One solution I'm looking at is screen-scraping via 3270. (I'm integrating the present with the past!)

Many years ago, I wrote C code which used HLLAPI as the basis for such a task.

1. Is HLLAPI still the best way to approach this task?
2. If so, would I be best off just writing a C app to undertake the work necessary and exec() this C app from php?
3. Are there any open source HLLAPI providers for Linux? (In the past I used commercial solutions such as Cleo.)

Answer 1

I haven't used it but maybe look at http://x3270.bgp.nu/ which says has a version:

s3270 is a displayless version for writing screen-scraping scripts

Answer 2

I'm currently trying to do a similar thing but with a command line Python script. I open a pipe to the s3270 (on Windows the exe name is ws3270) to connect to the server and send all commands.

Read carefully those part of the documentation for scripting:

http://x3270.bgp.nu/wc3270-man.html#Actions

http://x3270.bgp.nu/x3270-script.html#Script-Specific-Actions