What is Active Server Pages? (ASP)

Active Server Pages can be distinguished from more conventional HTML documents as the document will end with the file extension .asp.

Active Server Pages were introduced to allow dynamic content to be added to otherwise static web pages developed using HTML. ASP files include scripts (mainly written in Visual Basic Script) which are inserted within the document code which tell the web server how to present the document to the web browser.

The process for viewing an ASP page is that the end user requests the web page (in this case the ASP document) using a web browser. The request is sent by the web browser across the internet to the web server. The web server receives this request, identifies that the document is an ASP document and reads it to identify any scripts. Any scripts that it finds are processed in accordance with the instructions of the script and the result rendered as HTML which is inserted back into the document in place of the scripts. This new document is passed back across the internet to the web browser. The web browser receives this file and displays the document content in accordance with the instructions contained within the HTML.

If we take our example of adding today’s date to the top of the page we insert a VB Script within the HTML code at the point where the date is required. When the web server processes the page, it extracts this script and uses it to generate today’s date. The date generated is then inserted back into the page as a text value within the HTML code, which is then in turn returned to the web browser. The web browser receives only HTML code and renders it appropriately according to the HTML instructions.

This works well in straight forward cases but in more complex instances the inclusion of large amounts of script within the page content can lead to large and complicated files which become difficult to understand and manage. Also, as VB Script has only a limited subset of the full VB language commands there are limitations as to what can be achieved. Enter ASP.Net!

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