Chapter 13: Active Server Pages

Overview

As you may know, an Active Server Pages (ASP) script file is a text file containing any combination of scripts and HTML code processed and delivered as HTML to a web browser by the Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Services) web server. (IIS is included with every version of Windows, starting with Windows NT.) In theory, the process is nearly as simple as delivering static HTML. Once an IIS server accepts a browser's request and locates the page, it executes the commands listed in the ASP script file, renders the result as HTML, and sends it off to the browser.

ASP script commands can do anything from scanning a directory to connect and search a database to read and write files on the requestering computer. You can even access ActiveX objects for even more customized functions. Your options are only as limited as your creativity. That's the beauty of a tool such as Active Server Pages—if you can dream it, you can build it.

However, to fully utilize Active Server Pages and Dreamweaver MX, you need a basic understanding of the objects and script languages that make up ASP. We're not going to hit on every object, function, and method in the ASP script language, just the most commonly used elements.