ASP

[[BTF]adam]

Hey hey you code junkies, I don't know if this actually classifies as code but I have a project in which I am to build a website for a record company and perform some simple (to people that actually know ASP, one would assume) queries and something else which I don't remember right now, if I get stuck do any of you lovelies know ASP and might be able to point me in the right direction?

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[reaper]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Server_Pages



Like almost anything microsoft it looks easy but kind of sucks. In my opinion the reason for this is because things are not always easily accessible and they are often obscure, however the GUIs are usually nice and the applications are feature full.

Anyways, ASP is like Microsoft version of PHP.  So you make a web request, for example, "get / http1.1;blah, blah blah", and you get all types of things back, html, images, java script, whatever.  Early on in the web this information was static, you request a resource, say index.html, and you got just the markup language that  was residing in a file on the web server back.
Now with PHP and ASP, code is ran  on the server, when you make the request, and based on say... a cookie, or the system time, from the ASP script html is then dynamically generated and sent back to the client.

ASP is pretty easy,
So you'd have like:

<%

Response.Write "Hello World!"

%>

and before and after the "<%" tags you could put your html, and what's in between would be code that dynamically generates output that gets sent back in "index.html" or whatever resource on the web server you requested.  All that needs to be done is to tell the web server you are running ASP, and it automatically sends the requests for *.asp to the ASP interpreter.  Sometimes you will have functions you want to use in ASP in some .dll that is  COM component, and you have to register the DLL, then when the ASP interpeter loads, it links to the .dll so you can use your code.

That's pretty much it, ASP is Microsoft's PHP, and it's used everywhere instead of just using html.  However now I'd say most people use ASP.NET, since there is more code, and the code runs through a CLR, kind of like how java works.

edit: I'm not sure if that's correct about how the dll is loaded, but that's the general idea I believe

[reaper]

where you at adam?  what's the dealio

 

[[BTF]adam]

information is appreciated, thanks reaper

To be more specific, my website requires these:

Needs a CSS for it's design (wat)
an order form allowing customers to order items and stores the orders in a database (the ASP bit)

query in ASP to browse items

:<

[quadz]

Needs a CSS for it's design (wat)

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=css




This is the reference I usually use:  http://htmlhelp.com/reference/css/

To get a sense of what CSS can do, check out this site:

http://www.csszengarden.com/

As the home page explains, "To begin, view some of the existing designs in the list. Clicking on any one will load the style sheet into this very page. The code remains the same, the only thing that has changed is the external .css file. Yes, really."

You can load up different page designs, each of which has a radically different look, and the HTML isnt' changing at all.  Just the CSS.


Regards,

[[BTF]adam]

ugh cannae figure out how to write a query to allows me customers to browse through my data through item type ;<

[reaper]

you can connect to access or sql databases with asp's built in "database drivers"

for access, it would be like:

Access ODBC Standard connection "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};Dbq=D:\root\UserID\Domain.com\www\DataDirectory\mydatabase.mdb;Uid=Admin;Pwd=;" Access OLE DB Standard connection "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=\somepath\mydb.mdb;User Id=admin;Password=;"

filling in , the path to the database file, and a user and password to login to it.  once you have a connection, you can dynamically query it.  be carefull about things like sql injection.

[[BTF]adam]

thanks ill have a play around

[[BTF]adam]

Going OUT OF MY MIND HERE >_>

The skinny: i've got a database, it contains a customer table which is blank, and a products table filled n with sample records, I have an account on brinkster.net that allows me to upload the database, the database is uploaded and it should be at http://btfadam.brinkster.net/Stylusdb.mdb (I THINK). There is NOTHING in the Brinkster file manager, as of now. I dont even know what this ASP does but we were basically given a handout and I have modified it accordingly to my database.. like I said I dont know what it does but..

<%
Set objConn=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Set objRS=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.RecordSet")

objConn.Open "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ="&server.MapPath("Stylusdb.mdb")&";"

strSQL="SELECT * FROM Customer"

objRs.Open strSQL, objConn
%>

<HTML>
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" BORDER="1">
<%
While not objRS.EOF do
%>
<tr>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Forename").value%></td>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Surname").value%></td>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Address 1").value%></td>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Address 2").value%></td>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Post Code").value%></td>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Telephone Number").value%></td>
</tr>
<%
objRS.MoveNext
Loop
%>
</TABLE>
</HTML>

so what does that do? when I open the page in dreamweaver to preview it waffles on about needing a test server, and then just displays the code on a blank page.

What I need is a page that lists the items in the database I mentioned before, but by item type. (as an example the item types are CD, HiFi, DVD, Games, etc) and, an order form which stores whatever is put into the fields into that blank customer database.

and I have like three hours to do this in, and I feel like im pissing in the wind right now.

 

[reaper]

you need the access database, the actual mdb file, on the web server.

then in asp, you create a connection via a "driver" to the database.

Data source is the access database, and the path is relative to the web root.

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=\somepath\mydb.mdb;User Id=admin;Password=;"

You could also manage the odbc driver to the database and connect via odbc, but you would need to create the odbc connection in the server's control panel.

[[BTF]adam]

ok, in theory, should this work?

A line of code in my browse items page (note, I dont know what this line of code is), that "gets (?)" the ASP file, called browsestylus.ASP into that page, and the browsestylus.ASP code looks like this:

<%
Set objConn=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Set objRS=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.RecordSet")

objConn.Open "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ="&http://btfadam.brinkster.net/db/("Stylusdb.mdb")&";"

strSQL="SELECT * FROM Items"

objRs.Open strSQL, objConn
%>

<HTML>
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" BORDER="1">
<%
While not objRS.EOF do
%>
<tr>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Item Number").value%></td>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Item Name").value%></td>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Item Type").value%></td>
<td><%=objRS.fields("Item Price").value%></td>
</tr>
<%
objRS.MoveNext
Loop
%>
</TABLE>
</HTML>

what im hoping that would do is pull the ASP files html table into the browse items page, link the database fields into the specified ones and list it in said table.

[reaper]

why don't you start with getting a working connection to your database, and just pull up some data via a .asp page that comes from a simple query.  like 'select * from tablename'

http://www.connectionstrings.com/access

use the one that isn't ODBC, so you know for sure you don't need the ODBC driver configured on the server.  and some of the various ways of connecting to the database require the full path or a relative path from the web root.  you can ask brinkster what that is, or use the connection to the database that uses the relative path.

[[BTF]adam]

Here's the error im having:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e4e'

Operation was canceled.

/b/t/f/btfadam/browse.asp, line 7

It could be a multititude of problems but looking through only one stands out as possible as all the crap about JET is irrelevant, and that is that the path for the database might be wrong.. but it isnt, my database is uploaded in my brinkster file manager, in a folder called "db" and its name is Stylusdb.mdb

line 7 for me is:

objConn.Open "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ="&http://btfadam.brinkster.net/db("Stylusdb.mdb")&";"

I think this is all that's stopping me from at least listing the items on my dbase.. which is all I want to get done god damn ;( FUCK ASP!

[reaper]

for the DBQ parameter you have a URL, where it should be the pathname to the file, e.g, C:\root\adam\mydatabase. 

you may also wish to set write permissions to the .mdb file for the web server user that asp runs as, if permissions appear to be an issue.

"
brinkster,

IMPORTANT: Be sure to make note of the following when using these coding examples:
1. Replace username with your Brinkster hosting account username.
2. Replace C:\sites\single??\username\database\YourDB.mdb with the path to your web space.
3. Replace password with the password for the email account used above.
4. Please log into your account, select the web site settings, and use the absolute path to your file structure.




<%

 

Dim sPath as String = "C:\sites\single??\username\database\YourDB.mdb"

Dim strConnection As String = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OleDb.4.0;Data Source=" & sPath & ""

Dim sSQL As String = "Select * from tablename"

Dim objConnection As Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection = New Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection(strConnection)

Dim objCommandAuction1 As Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand = New Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand(sSQL, objConnection)

Dim oDr As Data.IDataReader

 

Try

    objConnection.Open()

    oDr = objCommandAuction1.ExecuteReader()

    Do While oDr.Read

        'Write information from database here

    Loop

    oDr.Close()

Catch ex As Exception

    Response.Write(ex.Message)

End Try

 

objConnection.Close()

 

%>
 
Basically that is Brinkster telling you how to connect to an access database on their web servers.

[reaper]

keep in mind you wouldn't want an access database online since there are limitations/problems when it gets even fairly large, around 20 megabytes.