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Free Coding Tutorial

What is ASP?
ASP stands for Active Server Pages. This is a side-server scripting language. It is a fantastic language that works well with simple HTML to make active and dynamically generated web sites. It can be used to make password protected web sites, set cookies, access and modify databases, send forms, emails, and more...

To use ASP pages you must be using a Windows-based server. Windows 2000 or NT servers are recommended. If you need web hosting with ASP click here to find a server or web host with the options you need.

First save your pages as .asp instead of .html because this tells the browser to open the ASP side server for ASP functions within the web page. You will have to load the pages on a Windows-based server.

Pros and Cons
ASP follows the instructions and functions of basic (beginners advanced symbolic instruction code), so if you're already familiar with languages such as Visual Basic, using and writing ASP is easy. On the downside, ASP can only work on servers running Windows.

Getting Started
Your ASP page needs to have <%@ language=vbscript %> at the very top. Since these pages can contain both HTML and code, you need to specify which parts of it are code. <% specifies that lines of code are going to follow, and %> specifies the end of those lines of code. Code can be placed anywhere within the tags of the HTML.

Quick Reference
The following are common instructions used in programming ASP, with what they do and how to use them. Note: variable should be replaced with a unique identifier for storing values.

Cint	Converts a string value to an integer value.

	variable = Cint(value)



Cstr	Converts an integer value to a string value.

	variable = Cstr(value)



Date	Gets the current date from the server clock.

	variable = Date



Datepart	Sets the variable to the specified part of the date where value = "M" (month), "D" (date), "YYYY" (year), "H" (hours), "N" (minutes), or "S" (seconds). date must contain a variable or value with a valid date.

	variable = Datepart(value,date)



Dim	Allocates space in memory for variables. This is required for every variable.

	Dim variable



Do/Loop While Do While/Loop	Continually executes code until a certain condition is met. For values, you can use < (less than), > (greater than), = (equal to), or <> (not equal to). For strings, only use = (equal to) or <> (not equal to).

	Do insert code Loop While variable = value

	Do While variable = value insert code Loop



For/Next/Step	Used for increasing or decreasing a variable while executing code. You can set the number of "steps" to increment or decrement the variable by setting a value for Step, though it is optional.

	For variable = value 1 To value 2 Step (-)value 3 insert code Next



If/Then/Else/End If	This is for finding the condition of a specific variable(s). For values, you can use < (less than), > (greater than), = (equal to), or <> (not equal to). For strings, only use = (equal to) or <> (not equal to).

	If variable = value Then insert code Else insert code End If



Left	Returns a specified amount of characters from the left portion of a string.

	variable = Left(variable,value)



Mid	Returns a portion in the middle of the string, starting at character value 1, and retrieving value 2 characters.

	variable = Mid(variable,value 1,value 2)



Replace	This replaces a string inside a variable with a different string.

	variable = Replace(variable,string inside variable,string to replace it with)



Request.Form	Returns the value of a submitted form variable.

	variable = Request.Form ("variable")



Request.Querystring	Returns the value of a variable set in a link.

	variable = Request.Querystring ("variable")



Response.Redirect	This will load the address located in url. This should only be used in ASP pages not including HTML (i.e. pages updating database information).

	Response.Redirect("url")



Response.Write	Writes HTML to the browser, meaning that the browser will enterpret this as if you were writing actual HTML code. This can include text, tags, header information, etc. To output the value of variables, it must be included outside the quotes.

	Response.Write ("<div align=center>The length is " & variable & " meters.</div>")



Right	Returns a specified amount of characters from the right portion of a string.

	variable = Right(variable,value)



Select/Case/End Select	Allows you to execute different sections of code depending on the value of a variable.

	Select Case(variable) Case value 1 insert code Case value 2 insert code Case value 3 insert code End Select



Session	This command allows you to store values which can be accessed by other pages during an active session.

	Session("variable") = value

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