ASP Classic Coding Most Read KB Posts

How to use ASPMail to send email from your web site.

Response.Flush sends the contents of the buffer to the browser. This command is useful for showing a visitor something while slow loading pages load.

Commenting Code
ASP Classic, like all the VB-based languages, uses a single quote (') or the original class-style basic "REM" (most developers just use a quote). ASP Classic does NOT have a multiple line comment.

Preprocessor Directives - @ and #
An @ is used for preprocessor directives within ASP code (within <% %>) and a # is used for HTML-style preprocessor directives.

Note: ASP Classic does not support VB Classic's #If directive.

The End If is optional if you put your code on a single line.

Use Application.Contents.RemoveAll and Session.Contents.RemoveAll

Use the scriptiing dictionary object which is available on later versions of ASP Classic (all still commonly in use). Both Access VBA and VB Classic use a collection for this but collections are not supported in ASP Classic.

In ASP Classic, you have to add an empty string to the value being compared in order to get consistent results. For example, add &"" to your string varilable or it's code equivalent &vbNullString. Then compare to an empty string or verify it's length to 0 with Len.

What is the syntax in ASP Classic for using an associative array?

When an object instance is created from a class, ASP calls a special parameter-less sub named Class_Initialize. Since you cannot specify parameters for this sub, you also cannot overload it.

When a class is destroyed, ASP calls a special sub called Class_Terminate.

How to use ASPMail to send email from your web site.

Arrays in ASP Classic use a 0-based indice.

Use UBound to get the number of elements. UBound returns -1 if the array has no elements, 0 if it has 1, 1 if it has 2, etc.

What is the syntax in ASP Classic for using an associative array?

To redirect from http to https, check the Request.ServerVariables HTTPS field and then use Response.Redirect if set to "off".

The following function demonstrates one technique for coding a Yes/No dropdown. It uses a for loop which can be expanded to handle more than the 3 states (Y, N, and blank).

Example of calling the function:

In ASP, using ADO, you sort a set of records using the Sort property.

The End If is optional if you put your code on a single line.

Languages Focus: Exception Trapping

A common usage of exception handling is to obtain and use resources in a "try-it" block, deal with any exceptions in an "exceptions" block, and release the resources in some kind of "final" block which executes whether or not any exceptions are trapped.