Question on how ASP communicates and general questions

[Robert Everland III]

How does ASP communicate with the end user? Does it leave
the connection open as long as the user has the page
opens? Are there articles stating this on Microsoft's
site? Also when did ASP first enter the world and in what
product? Thank you

 

[Aaron Bertrand - MVP]

ASP returns HTML to the client. Once the ASP has done generating HTML
content, ASP is no longer running and the connection is no longer active.
Such is the case with any server-side technology triggered by an HTTP
request...

I first used ASP in the IIS3.0 beta, though it evolved from idq/htx
technology that existed in IIS2 (NT 4.0). The first viable version of ASP,
in my opinion, arrived with IIS 4.0 (which was available through the Windows
NT 4.0 Option Pack).

 

[Guest]

Do you have a URL that I can go to to have documentation
on this. Thanks for any help.


Bob

 

[Aaron Bertrand - MVP]

Do you have a URL that I can go to to have documentation

on this.

Six or seven years ago, I might have. I'm not sure that ASP is documented
at such a base level these days, but you're welcome to snoop around about
it:

http://www.aspfaq.com/2183

 

[Tim Slattery]

How does ASP communicate with the end user? Does it leave
the connection open as long as the user has the page
opens? Are there articles stating this on Microsoft's
site? Also when did ASP first enter the world and in what
product? Thank you

ASP simply creates an HTML page. The communication with the user is
via the HTTP protocol. Look in the RFCs to find the definition of that
protocol.

 

[Guest]

Do you happen to know some search terms I could use to
look up the RFC?


Bob

 

[Aaron Bertrand - MVP]

Seriously! "HTTP RFC protocol" would be a start, no?

Oh, forget it. Let's just perpetuate the hand-holding...
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html

 

[Guest]

Don't need hand holding, I already started there. It
doesn't go into dynamic languages, strictly HTML. I wanted
to know if there were some RFC's specifically for ASP.


Bob

 

[Aaron Bertrand - MVP]

The browser initiates an HTTP request. As I alluded to earlier, regardless
of the server-side technology, the RFC covers the interaction between the
browser's request and the HTML that is returned by (insert your server-side
technology here).

--
Aaron Bertrand
SQL Server MVP
http://www.aspfaq.com/

 

[Michael D. Kersey]

Don't need hand holding, I already started there. It
doesn't go into dynamic languages, strictly HTML. I wanted
to know if there were some RFC's specifically for ASP.

ASP code runs under the IIS web server which adheres to the HTTP
protocol as specified in RFC 2616. As you have noted, RFC 2616 describes
only communications between a client (e.g., web browser) and a web
server(e.g., IIS).

The web server in turn passes incoming requests to application
program(s) via either the CGI specification ( http://www.w3.org/CGI/ )
or a proprietary interface. The latter applies to ASP, since ASP.DLL is
an ISAPI (Internet Server Application Program Interface) application.

[You may find the CGI specification very enlightening reading,
especially http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/overview.html since it is
gracefully short and since processing in ASP is modelled after the CGI
specification.]

Anyway, IIS accepts inbound requests, performs any necessary
pre-processing and then passes those requests to ASP.DLL (which is an
ISAPI application). ASP.DLL executes the prescribed script and the
result is returned to IIS. IIS performs any necessary post-processing
and returns the result to the client.

There is a great deal of information available that describes how IIS
interfaces with both CGI and ISAPI applications. Microsoft's web site is
especially informative. "ISAPI Application" is a good search term to
begin with:
http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?st=b&qu=isapi+applications&view=en-us

"Designing ISAPI Applications":
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...-us/iisref/htm/DesigningISAPIApplications.asp

 

[Tim Slattery]

Do you happen to know some search terms I could use to
look up the RFC?

HTTP

 

[Tim Slattery]

Don't need hand holding, I already started there. It
doesn't go into dynamic languages, strictly HTML. I wanted
to know if there were some RFC's specifically for ASP.

No there are not. ASP is not a network standard, it's proprietary to
Microsoft.