Screen Scraping ?

We have an issue with sales reps entering invalid email addresses into
our database (forgetting the ".com", missing "@" sign, etc.).  When we
send emails from the iSeries, we filter these out.  But we would like to
prevent them going in wrong in the first place, preferably by alerting
the rep at the point of entry so they can enter a correct address
instead.

Since we are using 3rd party software, we don't have control over the
code, so our IT Director has suggested "screen scraping" as a possible
solution. I did some Googling and poked around in the Midrange archives
a bit, but I'm not sure that screen scraping will do what we're looking
for.

Is it possible to write a PC application that can intercept entries
being made into a 5250 emulator intelligently enough to be able to edit
the input and interrupt the transmission to the iSeries if there is an
error ?  If there were, wouldn't this involve "web-facing" the entire
green screen application ?

Thoughts ?   

 

Greg Fleming

Senior Programmer/Analyst

Everglades Direct, Inc.