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VATSIM Confidential
AUTOMATION TOOLS
As of 21 April 2003
i © VATSIM 2002
Issue Record
ii © VATSIM 2002
General Notes
Setting and retrieving data is done via POSTing or GETting data from various scripts
on the Certificate Server. The response from all scripts is either a list of comma-
separated values (records delimited with CRLFs) or an error/success code.
Ideally, you should download the database via regdb.php or divdb.php daily and use
this as your reference, to avoid continuous calls to VATSIM’s database. Under no
circumstances should any automated process use regdb or divdb more than twice in
any 24-hour period.
Data is retrieved from VATSIM through the divdb.php and regdb.php tools. The
return is always comma-separated values.
1 ID VATSIM issued ID
2 Rating Certificate Rating:
0 = Suspended
1 = Pilot / Obs
2 = Student
4 = Senior Student
5 = Controller
7 = Senior Controller
8 = Instructor
10 = Senior Instructor
11 = Supervisor
12 = Administrator
3 Name (First) First Name
4 Name (Last) Surname
5 E-mail Registered e-mail address
6 Age Band Age band of:
1 is <= 12
2 is 13-17
3 is 18-25
4 is 26-36
5 is 37-48
6 is 49-60
7 is 61 and older
7 State State / County / Province
8 Country ICAO two-letter code for country of residence
9 Experience Code Code representing real-life experience of
N = Neither atc nor pilot
P = real Pilot
A = real Atc
B = Both a real atc and a pilot
10 End of suspension This is a date containing the date on which re-
activation of the users account will automatically
occur.
iv © VATSIM 2002
A sample record would then be:
800014,12,James,Willan,james@the-
willans.fsnet.co.uk,5,Midlands,GB,P,3/20/2002,2/14/2002 4:02:50 PM,EUR,GBR
This decodes to: User 800014 is an Administrator, name James Willan, e-mail
james@the-willans.fsnet.co.uk, age 37-48, living in the Midlands of Britain, with
real-world pilot experience, registered on 14 Feb 2002 at 4:02:50 in the afternoon, a
member of Europe region / UK division. The 2/14/2002 represents nothing.
v © VATSIM 2002
Region codes are:
AFR Africa
ASIA Asia
EUR Europe Region
OCEN Oceania
USA-C Central America
USA-N North America
USA-S South America
After many requests, this script allows a division / region to check a user’s password.
Ideally, divisions / regions would create their own passwords for users by sending an
e-mail to the user (using the address on file). Realising that some web providers do
not allow automated e-mails to be sent, this script is a last-resort alternative.
TO CHECK A PASSWORD:
pwordcheck.php?id=xxxxxx&password=000000
(where xxxxxx is VATSIM ID and 000000 is password to check)
vi © VATSIM 2002
Setting Data
Changing Ratings
ratch.php?id=xxxxxx&rat=y
Please note that ratings of suspended and senior staff ratings may only be set through
the Admin Console and not via automation scripts. This is to ensure that these
changes are individually accountable and that appropriate comments can be entered.
Note further that the automation interface will not allow a change to the rating of a
member whose rating is any of suspended, inactive, supervisor or administrator.
The use of this script generates an e-mail to the user to inform them of the change and
should not be called unless the rating is to be changed.
Finally, all regional and divisional systems making use of this function must maintain
an audit trail that indicates who actually requested the rating change and when that
request was made. It is optional to retain justification for the rating change in the
audit trail.
divch.php?id=xxxxxx&div=yyy
This script was provided to allow divisions who use a division registration procedure
to automatically notify VATSIM of the user’s choice of division if they have not
already notified their choice to VATSIM. Please check the user has not set their
division by checking the response in their record in regdb.php.
ix © VATSIM 2002
Example 2 Changing a Division
This script again you need to log in using authid etc but can effect only a member in
your region
You can substitute the DIV hidden field for a drop down list
[1] authid Region
[2] authpassword
[3] users id
[4] chosen division
x © VATSIM 2002
Example 4 Password check
How the individual Division uses this data is beyond the scope of this document.
However it can be retirieved as follows
xi © VATSIM 2002