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Beginning Active Server Pages

By James Crowley, published on 08 Mar 2002
Page 4 of 16
  1. Introduction
  2. Before you start
  3. Outputting Data
  4. Outputting Data 2
  5. Forms
  6. Forms 2
  7. Using Databases
  8. Using Databases 2
  9. Getting DB Content
  10. Query Strings
  11. Debugging
  12. Error Handling
  13. Including Files
  14. Making Content Expire
  15. Cookies
  16. Conclusion

Outputting Data 2

Another great thing with ASP is you are not limited to simply VB - you can 'hard-code' HTML too. Take a look at this example:

<%
'declare the variables
Dim bTest, sName, sVariable
'set their values...
bTest = True
sName = "Fred"
sVariable = "hello James"
%>
<table border="1">
  <tr><td><%
If bTest Then
    Response.Write sVariable
Else
    Response.Write sName
End If
%></td></tr>
</table>

What this code does is display some text in a HTML table. If the variable bTest is true (which, in this instance is the case), sVariable is placed in between the <td> and </td> tags. Otherwise, sName is outputted there instead. Not sure exactly what is happening? Take a look in your browser. Then, right click and select View Source. What you should see is this:

<table border="1">
  <tr><td>hello James</td></tr>
</table>

Another useful feature is that If...Then...Else statements don't only apply to Visual Basic. You can use them to selectively output existing HTML. Let's convert a previous example to using this syntax:

<% If Request.QueryString("id") = "1" Then %>
  <p>This is some different text</p>
<% Else %>
  <p>This is text!</p>
<% End If %>

which does exactly the same thing. You might also find you want to simply output the value of a variable into some hard coded HTML. ASP provides a function for this too. Instead of using the <% and %> tags, use <%=VariableName%>. For example,

<p>Welcome, <%=sName%> to VB Web!</p>

would insert the value of sName into the HTML, and is the same as

<p>Welcome, <% Response.Write sName %> to VB Web!</p>

One final thing before we move on... When using the Response.Write statement you might find you want to include a quote (") within the string. You can do this in two ways. Either use the Chr(32) statement:

Response.Write "<p><font color=" & Chr(34) & "#FF0000" & Chr(34) & ">Welcome!</font></p>"

or simply replace the single quote with a double quote:

Response.Write "<p><font color=""#FF0000"">Welcome!</font></p>"

I'll leave it up to you to decide which is more elegant!

Comments

  1. michael poxon
    16 Dec 2006 at 21:38
        Hi,
    When I say I'm an ASP beginner, I mean it! I've only written one trivial bit of code, and got a blank page. I see now that's described in the article snippet below. I did indeed go to the saved .asp page on my hard drive!
    So my questions:
    I have XP, so IIS is presumably installed. In the snippet below, are 'localhost' and c:\inetpub\wwwroot the actual strings to type in? For example, I currently don't have a folder called "inetpub". Do I have to create one? And where on my actual server (starman.co.uk) should I put any ASP pages?
    Alternatively, is there a good introductory book you can recommend?
    • When you create an ASP page, you cannot view it on your hard disk by going to C:MyWebmyasppage.asp. It won't work! That references a direct page on your hard disk, and the server doesn't get a chance to parse any of the ASP code.
    • If you have IIS installed, it means your PC is a server (even if your PC is the only one which can access it)! You can access the pages on the server at http://localhost/ or http://PCName/. The physical location of your web site is by default C:\inetpub\wwwroot. Save your ASP pages there, and view them in a browser by visiting the URLs above.





  2. writetoksk
    04 Oct 2006 at 06:26

    hi,

    its first i started ASP.I want to know how to save the files.whats the extensions...Where can i get the sample programs

  3. James Crowley
    28 Dec 2004 at 08:13

    Are you running IIS ? And are you viewing it in your browser via the correct URL? (ie something starting with http:// rather than file:// ) ?

  4. James Crowley
    28 Dec 2004 at 08:12

    It does - you just can't see it We've got an ISAPI filter that rewritse /show/1010/ to something like /show.aspx?id=1010

  5. Sonic D Hedgehog
    12 Dec 2004 at 17:52
    Is there something special I have to do besides saving it as a .asp file, or does it just not work on my server? It just spits out the code, even HTML, as plain text.

    Code:
    <html>
    Let's see if ASP works!<br>
    <%
    Response.Write "Yep!"
    %>
    </html>
  6. Sonic D Hedgehog
    12 Dec 2004 at 17:46

    "The VB code can act on information passed to the page, such as from an internet form or a querystring (this is data passed in the URL after the ? ... take a look at this pages URL!)"


    http://www.developerfusion.com/show/1010 doesn't have a question mark in it...

  7. butro com
    31 Mar 2004 at 19:34

    you can not include a file from a remote storage site other than the one your website is being hosted on , like writing <!--#include file = " www.someplace.com/somefile.inc " --> but by using asp tear codes you can if you have any support this features.

  8. zabawka
    04 Feb 2004 at 21:30
    What do I do if I need to include a file from a remote storage site other than the one my website is being hosted on. The following doesn't work anymore

    <!--#include file = " www.someplace.com/somefile.inc " -->

    or even less the " virtual " call which starts searching the virtual directory the website is stored on.

    What now?

    Do I need to write a routine to access the file remotely then spilling it onto the page using response.write???


  9. James Crowley
    03 Feb 2004 at 10:58
    The trick for this is to get .NET to generate a TLB library for your the .NET class. In Vs.NET, you can modify the current build profile and set the "Register for COM Interop" section to true. See http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Code/2002/April/COMInteropP2AJ.asp for more information.
  10. mak
    03 Feb 2004 at 08:58
    hi all,

            I am very new to ASP technology.  
            I am in a need to use DLLs (written in C#) in ASP Pages.
            Could anyone suggest me how to proceed.

    Regards,
    MAK,
  11. ushaRamesh
    02 Feb 2004 at 00:25

     i'd used ActiveX treeview control in my page and created tree by using ASP codings. but the tree is shown as collapsed one on load. i'd tried "TreeView1.Nodes(count).EnsureVisible " which produces an error of "index out of bounds". anyone pls help me as early as possible as i 've to complete by today itself. Thanks

  12. Alex
    05 Jan 2004 at 04:49

    thanks, but it wasn't the sql. i did that. it's long since solved.

  13. Anuradha Vasudeva
    05 Jan 2004 at 01:49

    chk your SQL statement. Stop before execting cConn.Execute sSQL . Print sSQL and try executing the same in the backend. If it doesnt work then you need to change the SQL statement.

  14. Alex
    13 Nov 2003 at 15:43

    i solved the problem a while ago, but i forgot how.

  15. zoglchaim
    12 Nov 2003 at 18:18

    heppens to be that i have the same prolem.

  16. kyayhmon
    21 Oct 2003 at 00:51

    I'm beginner of ASP.I make my thesis with ASP.But I've got problem for building project in Visual InterDev.I'd already installed IIS5.It shows web server can't connect.How I do?If it's cause of IIS error,please explain me step by step.let me know solution during five days.please help me.

  17. Alex
    15 Jul 2003 at 09:07

    It doesn't work it all. I created the table using Access and set of the OBDC fine. What's wrong?

  18. Alex
    15 Jul 2003 at 06:27

    I get this error when I submit forminput.asp:


    Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e14'


    [Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] Unknown


    /forminput.asp, line 12


    What's wrong? I even copied the code over exactly.
    the error's with this line:
    cConn.Execute sSQL

  19. ankush_vachher
    23 Jun 2003 at 02:54

    Quote:
    [1]Posted by JadesNet on 22 May 2003 09:07 AM[/1]
     I tried this code out exactly, but I get an INSERT INTO syntax error.  I have also tried using the rs.AddNew to add to my database but I get a read-only error.  I have tried changing the lock type and cursor types around but I can't get anything to work.


    pls see t he comment

  20. ankush_vachher
    23 Jun 2003 at 02:53

    U Have to include a file name adovbs.inc file i yr asp page. thenu can use the addnew and update methods

  21. JadesNet
    22 May 2003 at 09:07
     I tried this code out exactly, but I get an INSERT INTO syntax error.  I have also tried using the rs.AddNew to add to my database but I get a read-only error.  I have tried changing the lock type and cursor types around but I can't get anything to work.
  22. mallyone
    03 Jun 2002 at 20:39

    One thing to note, this only works on pages which have been posted to

  23. Developer Fusion Bot
    01 Jan 1999 at 00:00

    This thread is for discussions of Beginning Active Server Pages.

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James Crowley James first started this website when learning Visual Basic back in 1999 whilst studying his GCSEs. The site grew steadily over the years while being run as a hobby - to a regular monthly audience ...
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