Designing Active Server Pages

Developers of Active Server Pages often reinvent the wheel. Their background in web design, with its separate HTML page for each viewable web page on a site, leads many ASP developers to create a distinct ASP page each time they think they need one. Often times, these pages are functionally similar. With intelligent planning, an ASP developer stands to save a great deal of time by creating reusable ASP pages. Designing Active Server Pages is tailor-made for these developers.

There is currently a plethora of Active Server Pages books. However, the vast majority of these books are either technical references or how-to books for beginners. Designing Active Server Pages is written for the intermediate to advanced user. Furthermore, nearly every other book on ASP focuses on using VBScript, even though ASP supports an array of scripting languages, including JScript and PerlScript. Designing Active Server Pages shows how to start using these other languages.

The latest version of the scripting engines (Version 5.1 for VBScript) adds new features not available before the 5.0 release. These features include class support for VBScript, and Regular Expression searching through the use of a COM object. Designing Active Server Pages explains why using classes in VBScript is beneficial, and demonstrates the power of regular expression searching.

This book shows how to simplify the process by only requiring one ASP page to handle ALL of the Forms throughout a web site, thus reducing the amount of code one has to write.

Topics include:

• Using various Microsoft and third-party components to enhance ASP pages
• Creating components using VB and/or VC++
• Sample code for performing routine ASP tasks
• Techniques to allow for reusable database scripts on the database system and on ASP pages
• How to obtain and register third-party components, thus saving massive amounts of time by reusing someone else's code

Designing Active Server Pages is for developers who have already mastered the basics of ASP application development and are ready to take the next logical step. It is sure to become an indispensable part of every web developer's library.

Preface

1. Introduction
     What Is Application Design?
     What's Wrong with ASP Design?
     Why Hasn't ASP Design Advanced?
     What Can Be Done to Improve ASP Design?
     Further Reading

2. Choosing a Server-Side Scripting Language
     The Popularity of VBScript
     Specifying the Scripting Language
     Creating ASP Pages with JScript
     Creating ASP Pages with PerlScript
     Creating ASP Pages with Python
     Further Reading

3. Exception Handling
     A Bit of Terminology
     Detecting When Exceptions Occur
     Responding to Exceptions
     Creating Custom HTTP Error Pages
     Further Reading

4. Regular Expressions, Classes, and Dynamic Evaluation and Execution
     Using the RegExp Object
     Using Object-Oriented Programming with VBScript
     Using Dynamic Evaluation and Execution
     Further Reading

5. Form Reuse
     The Importance of Code Reuse
     A Primer on Form Use
     Form Validation
     Creating Reusable Server-Side Form Validation Routines
     Developing Reusable Form Creation Routines
     The Practicality of Reuse
     Further Reading

6. Database Reuse
     Examining Database Usage
     The Building Blocks for Creating Reusable Administration Pages
     Creating Reusable Administration Pages
     Further Reading

7. Using Components
     COM-A Quick Overview
     Lesser-Known Microsoft COM Components
     Enhancing Microsoft's COM Components
     Building Components
     Further Reading

8. Enhancing Your Web Site with Third-Party Components
     Executing DOS and Windows Applications on the Web Server with ASPExec
     Obtaining Detailed Information About Your Users's Browsers
     Grabbing Information from Other Web Servers
     Encrypting Information
     Uploading Files from the Browser to the Web Server
     Why Reinvent the Wheel?
     Further Reading

Index