What is ASP?

A

arno

Hello,

I am wondering _what_ programming language ASP is, where can I get a (free?)
editor for it, where can I find documentation on the objects/methods/events
that are available? Is there something for ASP like SelfHTML? I have the
same questions for ASP.net...

Somehow I managed to create a contact form that's sending emails with
asp-scipts (CDONTS, uhh old stuff, I know).
I would like to enhance my scipts eg. by checken the user input, so I would
need functions like

left
mid
search for strings in a string
AND/OR
length of strings
concatenations
select case
if elsif
etc. etc.

regards

arno
 
K

Kevin Spencer

Hi arno,

ASP (Active Server Pages) is not a language, but a technology. It is
actually an ISAPI (Insternet Server Application Programming Interface),
which resides on a web server and handles client requests for pages with a
".asp" extension. It uses any of several scripting languages, most notably
Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript), but also including
JScript and one or 2 others. ASP dynamically writes HTML into an HTML
document that is sent beck to the browser as a Response to the Request for
the page, using server-side logic to determine what it writes out to the
page. It has the capacity to perform certain types of operations on the
server, including the ability to interact with COM (Compoentn Object Model)
DLLs on the server to perform such operations as using email, working with
databases, etc.

Microsoft has a huge repository of reference materials on their web site,
called the MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) Library:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp

You can read all about any Microsoft technology on that site, incuding ASP
and ASP.Net. To get your feet wet, you might want to stop by my web site at
http://www.takempis.com, which has a number of articles, tutorials, and
sample code that are for beginners with ASP.

In addition, Microsoft has several ASP and ASP.Net newsgroups, including
microsoft.public.inetserver.asp.general for ASP, and
microsoft.dotnet.framework.aspnet for ASP.Net.

Good luck!

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.
 
A

arno

Hello Kevin,

thank you for your tips. Now, I browsed through your website and tried to
create a "counter" with your sample code. I reduced it to the minimun and it
is still not working:

<body>
we say:
<%
x = "hello!"
Response.Write x
%>
</body>

or another version:
<body>
we say:
<script language="VBScript" type="text/VBScript">
x = "hello!"
Response.Write x
</script>
</body>

I never get the "hello!" part working, this also happens with the counter
(file is not read, counter not increased). Is the Server of the ISP not
doing his job or is there an error in my code above? (My sendmail.asp script
is still working.)

kind regards

arno
 
K

Kevin Spencer

You're using client-side scripting tags, there, arno. That's not something
you can "reduce" from my examples. Use ASP server-side <%scripting tags%> if
you want the code to run on the server! ;-)

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.
 
L

Lisa Wollin \(Microsoft\)

Arno,

The following code works fine for me.

<body>
we say:
<%
x = "hello!"
Response.Write x
%>
</body>

If you are trying to veiw the page in FrontPage, then because there is asp
code, you can't view the asp results until you view it from a server.

If possible, setup your local computer to allow IIS (Internet Information
Services). Then you can view the page through http://localhost. Setup
instructions will depend on which Windows version you have. If you are
using Windows 98 or earlier, you will need to install the Microsoft Personal
Web Server, which you can download from MSDN.

If you provide your Windows version, I can give you specific instruction, or
if you do a Google search for installing IIS (or Personal Web Server), and
you should get many results back that will help you setup your computer to
view ASP files.

--
Lisa Wollin
Programmer Writer
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of included code samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm.
 
D

Dennis

Arno,

About a month ago, I had exactly the same question - "What is ASP". I went
down to Barnes and Noble and bought a book and I guess I got lucky because
it's done a great job of walking me through things. I recommend the book.
It is "Active Server Pages 3.0 by IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. ISBN:
0-7645-3472-6. www.maran.com Once I read through it once, the mysteries
were cleared away and I've been able to do pretty much what I've wanted to
since then.

Cheers,
 
A

arno

Hello Kevin,
You're using client-side scripting tags, there, arno. That's not something
you can "reduce" from my examples. Use ASP server-side <%scripting tags%> if
you want the code to run on the server! ;-)
Click to expand...

something is going terribly wrong here, maybe the scripts do not run
correctly on my Internet Service Provider. Would you be so kind and post the
a *html* page of your counter that results in:

"You are visitor Number xxxxxx to this page! (text)"


To put the problem in other words:
On your page http://www.takempis.com/asp1.asp you give an example, my result
on my ISP-Webserver ( http://www.zoppoth.net/test1.htm ) is:

Lon's Welcome Page

Good Morning!!!

Good Afternoon !!!

Good Evening !!!

Thanks for coming_

Strange, it's 8:00 in the morning here.


regards

arno
 
A

arno

Hello Lisa,

I installed IIS 5.0 on my Win2k SP4 machine from the windows CD. The scripts
are not working, on my local computer, too.

I managed to make my scripts run :)

Thank you for the tip

arno
 
K

Kevin Spencer

You're on your way, Arno!

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.
 

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