Page 207 - DCAP408_WEB_PROGRAMMING

Unit 7: Introduction to ASP (Active Server Pages)

 When creating an ASP page, you can use one of four programming languages which are Notes
VBScript, Jscript, PerlScript and Python. Most ASP pages are created using

 ASP page contain embedded HTML which allows for existing static Web pages to be easily
converted into dynamic ASP pages. An ASP page must contain an .ASP extension.
 To execute ASP pages on the computer, you need to be running a Web server capable of
handling ASP pages. The Server processes the request to ASP page before it is sent to the
client. During this processing the programmatic code in the ASP page is interpreted by the
Web server and the Web server informs the browser that it is sending HTML information
and sends the output of the ASP page. The browser, receiving this raw HTML renders it for
the user.
 If you are creating a professional website, it is important that the web site run on computer
that has Windows NT Server or Windows 2000 installed. You can install Personal Web
Server (PWS) which is a stripped down version of professional server intended to run on
Microsoft Windows 95 or 98 or Microsoft Windows NT workstation or you can choose to
install the Internet Information Server (IIS) which is Microsoft’s professional Web server.
 ASP Pages can run even without IIS or PWS as your Web server. Software such as Halcyon
Software’s Instant ASP (iASP), Chili! ASP allows ASP pages to run on various Web servers
and platforms. These products can run on many non-IIS Web servers and also on a number
of platforms

7.10 Keywords

Active Server Pages: ASP is used to create dynamic pages that interact with a database. It contains
two parts which are programmatic code and embedded HTML.
Internet Information Server (IIS): It is Microsoft’s professional Web server.
Jscript: Similar to java script and used as scripting language for active server pages.
PerlScript: Similar to Perl and used as scripting language for active server pages.
Personal Web Server (PWS): It is a stripped down version of professional server intended to run
on Microsoft Windows 95 or 98 or Microsoft Windows NT workstation.
Python: A powerful scripting language commonly used for Web development.
The Active Platform: It reflects Microsoft’s ideas about how a desktop computer and a server
computer should communicate. It consists of two parts: the Active Desktop, which refers to the
client side, and the Active Server, which refers to the server side.
The Active Server: It refers to the Server side and consists of pages called the Active Server pages
that can be interpreted by the server.

VBScript: Similar to visual basic syntax, the most commonly used scripting language for active
server pages.
Web Server: It is a computer that contains all the web pages for a particular web site and has
special software installed to send these web pages to web browsers that request them.

7.11 Review Questions

1. You can run Active Server pages on your own computer without an external server. How
would you do that?

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 201