Programming In Active Server Page(ASP) - Introduction

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Programming Stuffs in ASP - Technical Skills for INTERVIEW

Active Server Pages


Summary: This two-module tutorial provides a step-by-step introduction to several ASP features. The tutorial shows how to build sample applications and demonstrates key concepts you'll need to understand when developing your own ASP pages. (11 printed pages)

Welcome to the Active Server Pages (ASP) tutorial. If you are new to Microsoft® Internet Information Services (IIS), this introduction provides necessary information about tutorial directory structure and permission issues. The two tutorial modules show you how to build sample applications, while demonstrating key concepts you'll need to understand when developing your own ASP pages. We suggest you work through each lesson in Module One before starting Module Two.

This article contains the following sections:
* Introduction. This section defines what ASP is, how it works, and other technologies that can be used in conjunction with
   ASP to create active content on your Web site. It also describes the directory structure you should use for the tutorial and
   security considerations that may affect your ability to run the tutorial.
* Module One. This module introduces the creation of an ASP page, and focuses on the collection and transfer of data. It
   contains the following lessons:
         *  Write and Run an ASP Page. Describes how to use Visual Basic® Scripting Edition (VBScript) and HTML tags.
         *  Send Information by Using Forms. Shows how to use forms to send information.
         *  Create a Guest Book. Shows how to create a sign-in book on your ASP page for visitors to your Web site.
         *  Display an Excel Spreadsheet in ASP. Explains how to display an Excel spreadsheet on an ASP page.
* Module Two. This module contains the following lessons:
         *  Rotate Information Randomly. Shows how to rotate ads on your Web page randomly.
         *  Record Traffic with a Page Counter. Demonstrates the use of a page counter to track the number of hits a page
             receives.

Introduction

Microsoft® Active Server Pages (ASP) is a server-side scripting technology that can be used to create dynamic and interactive Web applications. An ASP page is an HTML page that contains server-side scripts that are processed by the Web server before being sent to the user's browser. You can combine ASP with Extensible Markup Language (XML), Component Object Model (COM), and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to create powerful interactive Web sites.

Server-side scripts run when a browser requests an .asp file from the Web server. ASP is called by the Web server, which processes the requested file from top to bottom and executes any script commands. It then formats a standard Web page and sends it to the browser.

It is possible to extend your ASP scripts using COM components and XML. COM extends your scripting capabilities by providing a compact, reusable, and secure means of gaining access to information. You can call components from any script or programming language that supports Automation. XML is a meta-markup language that provides a format to describe structured data by using a set of tags.

As you work through the lessons in each module, save your work in the C:\Inetpub\Wwwroot\Tutorial directory to view the content on your Web site. If you did not customize your installation of IIS, C:\Inetpub\Wwwroot was created as the default home directory. To load and run the tutorial samples, you must have administrator privileges on the computer running IIS. The default IIS security settings should allow you to run the tutorial, but you may need to change your security settings on the directory if you encounter access violations. See the product documentation for more information about IIS security settings.