Built in ASP objects - Active Server Pages Reference

Overview
Active Server Pages consist of six built in objects. They are ready made objects which provide functionality to your web pages without requiring you to make custom objects ( though you can if you want to, later on that topic ) . This page contains only reference material on the methods, properties and events available in these objects, if you are not sure how to make use of them then please first go through an introductory article or tutorial on Active Server Pages then come back here. The reference material listed here pertains to the ASP 3.0 object model which Microsoft has introduced in IIS 5.0 ( windows 2000 ).

Following are the six built in ASP objects :

In our examples we will stick to VBScript as the primary server side scripting language.

The Application Object
The Application object is created when the first .asp page is requested after starting the IIS and remains there until the server shuts down. All the variables created with application object have application level scope meaning there by that they are accessible to all the users. All .asp pages in a virtual directory and its subdirectories come under the application scope. So application level variables are shared by more than one user at a time.

Syntax

Application.method

Collections

Description

Contents	A collection of all the items that have been added to the Application object.
StaticObjects	Collection of all the items that have been added to the Application object through <object> tag.

Methods

Description

Contents.Remove	Deletes the specified item from the Application.Contents collection.
Contents.RemoveAll	Deletes all the items from the Application.Contents collection.
Lock	Locks the application object so that only one user at a time can modify the values.
UnLock	Unlocks the application object allowing other users to modify application level variables.

Events

Description

Application_OnEnd	This event occurs when the IIS is shut down after Session_OnEnd event. All the variables are destroyed after that.
Application_OnStart	This event occurs when the first .asp page is called after starting the IIS. Application level variables can be declared here.

The ASPError Object
The ASPError object is created when Server.GetLastError is called. It contains a lot of info about the last scripting error found in the page. It is new and is only available in IIS5.

Syntax

ASPError.property

Properties

Description

ASPCode	A string which contains the error code generated by the server
Number	A long integer which contains the error code returned by the COM component. A standard COM error code.
Source	A string which contains the actual source code which caused the error, if available.
Category	A string which indicates if the error was caused by IIS, scripting language or some component.
File	A string, name of the .asp page which caused the error.
Line	An integer which indicates the number of line in .asp page that caused the error.
Column	An integer indicating the column position within the .asp page which caused the error.
Description	A string , short description of the error.
ASPDescription	Detailed description of the error if it is ASP related.