Sharing Data Between Applications

[Shades7_99]

Hey,

I am currently working on a project and I am wondering if one of you guys could help me.

I have two applications both written in Visual Basic.NET 2003. Application A is the main application that will manipulate the data pulled from Application B. Application B is a very basic inventory control system; all it does is pull a list of products and their quantities into a data grid and display them on a form.

So here is my question, is it possible to Interface Application A with Application B so that Application A has access to Application B's data without actually having access to its database.

I would imagine its some kind of API that I need to write or get access to and I was hoping one of you could help me.

Thanks for any help provided,
Colm

 

[JohnH]

Don't double post, your duplicates was deleted.

Let A export data to Xml after updates. Let B read from the Xml file. You can use a FileSystemWatcher if you need B to re-read when Xml file changes. DataSet class has got WriteXml and ReadXml methods.

 

[Shades7_99]

Sorry about the double posts, wasn't really sure which area was the best fit. I can't really use the XML option because the idea is I'm not actually supposed to have access to the source code or database of 'Application B'.
Cheers though