FT2283 Web Development

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FT228/3 Web Development
Active Server Pages IIS Web server
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Introduction

• Purpose to provide some practical experience of
  using IIS web server and basic ASP pages
• Active Server Pages Developed by Microsoft
• Active Server Pages is a programming model (as
  is CGI)
• Similar to JSP, script is interspersed with HTML
• Pages must have a file extension of .asp
  otherwise, server wont know to process as an ASP
  page

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Web Servers

• Microsoft has two web servers that are usually
  used to run ASP
• IIS (Internet Information Server Windows NT/XP
  Pro/2000
• PWS (Personal Web server) up to Windows 98
• IIS is free with Windows 2000/XP Pro, part of the
  Windows NT 4 option pack.
• PWS is a scaled down version of IIS for Personal
  Computers.
• ASP pages can be run on other servers, provided
  the server has the ASP engine. Sun Microsystems
  have produced a product called Chili!Soft ASP
  which enables ASP to be used on other web servers
  including, Apache, I-Planet, Zeus, Red Hat Secure
  Server, etc, using various operating systems
  including, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, etc.

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Set up a web site in IIS

• Open administrator tools in Control panel and
  open the Internet Server Manager
• Shows directory structure for IIS
• Default web site is the HTTP site. Expand the
  default web site (shown overleaf) and create a
  virtual directory in the Webpub directory - this
  will hold the documents for your web site. (A
  virtual directory is just an alias for a real
  directory that exists). This virtual directory
  will become part of the web address to access any
  documents contained in it
• e.g. http//localhost/Webpub/examples/blahblah.ht
  ml

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Set the access permissions
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Set up a web site in IIS

• Access permission security level choices for
  the virtual directory
• Read users can read and download files in the
  directory Run Scripts allows scripts in the
  directory to be run
• Execute allows applications in the directory
  (e.g. CGI )to be run
• Write alows a Web page to accept user input
  (e.g. credit card input
• Browse allows users to navigate from one web
  doc to another via hyperlinks

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Loading a document from IIS

• To load a HTML doc using IISFirst, ensure HTML
  doc has been placed in the virtual
  directoryThen type the web address for your
  html doc into the browser. This will bee.g
  http//localhost/webpub/alias/index.html
• To load ASP documents do exactly as above, and
  remember to access using .aspe.g
  http//localhost/webpub/alias/somepage. asp

What ever you called the directory
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ASP

• When a browser requests an ASP file, IIS passes
  the request to the ASP engine (ASP.dll). The ASP
  engine reads the ASP file, line by line, and
  executes the scripts in the file. Finally, the
  ASP file is returned to the browser as plain HTML
• ASP pages are usually written using VBScript, but
  can use other languages e.g. Microsofts Jscript
• VBScript is the default language (VBScript is a
  scaled down version of Visual Basic)
• Scripting code CAN be made to run on the client
  OR the server. e.g. can have an ASP page that
  contains Javascript validation to run on client,
  and VBScript for running on server (e.g. database
  access)

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Uses of ASP

• Can be used similar to JSP for
• Dynamically edit, change or add any content of a
  Web page
• Respond to user queries or data submitted from
  HTML forms
• Access any data or databases and return the
  results to a browser
• Customize a Web page to make it more useful for
  individual users
• Provides security since your ASP code can not be
  viewed from the browser
• Since ASP files are returned as plain HTML, they
  can be viewed in any browser

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Differences between VBScript and Visual Basic

• VBScript explicitly supports one data type only ,
  the Variant
• VBScript is an interpreted language
• VBSCript cannot directly use the Windows API
• There a a few syntactical different in the use of
  some internal functions

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Readability of ASP pages

• Always always always ensure that code is
• INDENTED COMMENTED ID BLOCK
• Indented - to reflect level of the code
  
• ajsdlkfjads etc
• 2) Well commented. Comments in ASP appear as
  the next subroutine will appear as followed
  by a function which will calculate..
• Comments in HTML appear as
• HTML comments will be visible by view source in
  browser, ASP comments wont.

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Readability of ASP pages
3) Titled At the top of each ASP page, should
have an ID block explaining who write the script,
date, script name, description and any revisions.
Can use either ASP or HTML comments (depending
on whether clients should be able to see the ID
block)
' Script name conversion.asp
' Author Jimmy Saville
Date July 7th 2003
Desciption whatever it does..
Revisions
August 8th 2003 added subroutine
'
etc
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ASP Syntax

• ASP files for web output usually contain HTML
  tags.
• Any scripts intended for execution by the server
  must be between to distinguish them
  from HTML
• The ASP engine looks specifically for code
  between
• - this code will then be parsed by
  the ASP engine. The remainder will be ignored

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ASP Scripting languages

• The default language for code is VBScript,
  although other languages can be used e.g.
  JavaScript, Jscript.
• To set the language , use a language
  specification at the first line of the page using
  the _at_Language declarer
• etc etc
• You dont have to set the language for VBSCript
  as its the default but its good practice to
  include it.
• All examples here are in VBScript

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ASP- simple example
Wayne"response.write("My name is "
name)

• Using View Source at the browser will show HTML
  only.
• Dim used to create a variable name
• Write methods of Response object used to output
• Option Explicit enforces all variables to be
  declared. Good practice

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ASP Declaring variables

• To declare a variable use Dim e.g Dim Actors
• Variables are of type variant (You dont have to
  explicitly state string, integer etc.)
• To declare an array add the array size on. e.g.
  Dim Actors(3)
• First element of the array has an index 0 e.g.
  Actors(0) Tom
• Function Ubound determines the upper index of the
  arraye.g. Ubount(Actors) has a value of 4

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ASP Declaring variables - example
declare a few variables. Dim SomeText  Dim
SomeNum  'Next we will assign a value to
these.  SomeText "ASP is great!"  SomeNum
1  'Note that SomeText is a string and SomeNum
is numeric.  'Next we will display these to the
user.  Response.Write(SomeText)  Response.Write
(SomeNum)  'You may also add (append) HTML code
to these.  Response.Write ("Right now you are
thinking that " SomeText)
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ASP- Array example
. A list of the best actors
in the film
Actors(0) Tom Cruise Actors(1) Cillian
Murphy Action(2) Julia Roberts For I
0 to Ubound(Actors) OutStr OutStr
Actors(I)
Next
Response.Write(OutStr) etc
Do not have to include the Counter variable as
in VB.
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ASP Object Model

• ASP has seven built-in objects. Each of these
  objects has a set of properties , methods and
  collections that can be used to enhance ASP
  pages
• Request (Has a form collection to hold data
  entered into a form)
• Response (Has a write method to output to web
  page)
• Session
• Server
• Application
• ObjectContext
• ASPError(new)Detailed info at
  http//www.asp101.com/resources/aspobject.asp

Data structures where number of elements is
variable (unlike arrays)
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ASP Object Model - Request

• Request - supplies information regarding the
  request the user sends to the Web application
• Request objects includes the following
  collections
• Form (values from the form elements sent by the
  browser).Any elements in a HTML
  are available to to ASP using Request.Form
  (elementname) IF the post request method has
  been used
• QueryString values of the variables in a HTTP
  query string, which is data sent to the server in
  the URL I.e. www.blahblah.com?id2347name
  jim QueryString is populated if the get
  method is used

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ASP Object Model Request HTML Form that
collects 3 pieces of info
.. header etc blue size 4 face arial "post" Action "processForm.asp" Your name


Your favourite colour txtColour
Your favourite film type text name txtFilm
type "submit" value "Click to submit
information" etc
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ASP Object Model Request output form content
onto a web page
4 The data entered into the form was

Name

Favourite colour tColour")
Favourite Film


etc
The Form collection of the Request object holds
all the request parameters
Note can use a short cut to output onto the web
page from a script. Instead of Response.write
can just use . Both ways shown here.
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ASP Subroutines and functions

• Use subroutines and functions in ASP pages in
  order to economise on code.. I.e to enable
  modules of code to be used and reused
• Subroutines define a series of steps that
  accomplishes some task, but does not usually
  return a value
• Functions accomplish a series of steps And
  usually return a single value

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ASP Subroutines - example
response.write(num1num2) end sub The product of the two numbers entered
is request.form("firstNum") y
request.form("secondNum") Result calculate(x,y) etc
Subroutine always starts with Sub, ends with End
Sub
use Call
Arguments passed to subroutine (num1, num2)
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ASP Function example
etc dim tax taxprice.09 retailPrice
pricetax end Function etc..
etc price")) Response.write(The retail price
includig tax " y) etc
Function always startswith Function and ends
with End function Make sure that output is
explicitly named in the function
Retrieves a netprice and calculates the retail
price, using the function
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ASP- reusable code

• Very common in a web application to need to
  include common code such as headers/footers/naviga
  tion bars, subroutines etc across more than one
  Web page.
• ASP allows the use of a Server Side Include
  directive called INCLUDE, which includes the
  contents of another file into the current file.
  Its the only SSI directive allowed in ASP (e.g.
  echo, exec etc are not allowed)
• Must surround the include SSI directive as a
  HTML comment
• Syntax

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ASP- reusable code - example

• Will include the contents of header.html into the
  ASP page. It assumes header.html is in
  subdirectory include, relative to to the current
  directory. Note good practice to place all
  include code into a single directory.. called
  include

• Will include the contents of header.html into the
  ASP page. It assumes header.html is the files
  virtual path relative to the server root
  directory. Its not concernted with current
  directory.

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Comparing ASP versus JSP

• Similarities
• Both are scripting based technologies
• Both enable dynamic web pages
• Both help to separate the page design from the
  programming logic
• Both provide an alternative to CGI Scripts,
  enabling easier and fast page development and
  deployment
• Compilation ASP was originally interpreted but
  ASP.netuses compiled code, similar to JSP

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Using ASP versus JSP ?

• For a development project, how to choose whether
  ASP versus JSP may be used? (assuming PHP and
  others have been excluded!)
• What technology is used already? ASP is usually
  used with Microsofts IIS, which requires Windows
  operating system -? tied into Microsoft
  technology. Whereas JSP is platform independent
  -? check whether the company is tied into any
  particular vendor products already that will
  guide decision
• ASP JSP
• Web Server Microsoft IIS Any web
  server, include apache, Netscape IIS
• Platforms Microsoft Windows Most popular platforms

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Using ASP versus JSP ?

• Development skills - JSP support Javascript,
  Java code and tags (custom and JSLT). ASP
  supports both Vbscript and JavaScript. Need to
  check which skills are already available in the
  development team
• Simplicity? ASP was traditionally regarded as
  simpler to develop (VBScript) than JSP (using
  Java code). However, the growth in use of
  re-usable tag based actions for JSP is changing
  this. If the company is open to using JSP tags,
  both are relatively simple.
• Re-usability across platform JSP will be
  portable across platforms, ASP generally is not.

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Using ASP versus JSP ?

• Debugging/error resolution In JSP, the code is
  converted into Java servlets in the background
  any runtime errors refer to the servlet code
  which can make it difficult to find the error.
  ASP is not translated so any line references
  are within the ASP page itself.
• Code re-use - Both allow common code to be taken
  out and re-used. JSP, with its use of custom and
  JSLT tags, is probably superior on this. Use of
  tags also enables easy global changes without
  individual page change.
• Performance JSP traditionally considered faster
  as code is precompiled into servlets. However,
  now that ASP is part of ASP.Net which is also
  compiled ? comparable on performance.

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Using ASP versus JSP ?

• Open source JSP (and other java based
  technologies from Sun) are developed with input
  from the Java community. ASP is proprietary.
  Cost/quality/vendor support implications.