NAME ASP - a Module for ASP (PerlScript) Programming SYNOPSIS use strict; use ASP qw(:strict); print "Testing, testing.

"; my $item = param('item'); if($item eq 'Select one...') { die "Please select a value from the list."; } print "You selected $item."; exit; DESCRIPTION This module is based on Matt Sergeant's excellent Win32::ASP module, which can be found at . After using Mr. Sergeant's module, I took on the task of customizing and optimizing it for my own purposes. Feel free to use it if you find it useful. NOTES Both of the print() and warn() standard perl funcs are overloaded to output to the browser. print() is also available via the $ASP::ASPOUT->print() method call. $Request->ServerVariables are stuffed in %ENV to more closely resemble CGI.pm ASP.pm now exports the $ScriptingNamespace symbol. This symbol allows PerlScript to call subs/functions written in another script language. For example: <%@ language=PerlScript %> <% use ASP qw(:strict); print $ScriptingNamespace->SomeSub("arg1"); %> INSTALLATION This module can be installed via my PPM repository at http://dichosoft.com/perl USE use ASP qw(:basic); Exports basic subs: Print, Warn, die, exit, param, param_count. use ASP qw(:strict); Allows the use of the ASP objects under `use strict;'. NOTE: This is not the only way to accomplish this, but I think it's the cleanest, most convenient way. use ASP qw(:all); Same as `use ASP;'. Exports all subs except those marked 'not exported'. use ASP (); Overloads print() and warn() and provides the $ASP::ASPOUT object. FUNCTION REFERENCE warn LIST `warn' (or more specifically, the __WARN__ signal) has been re- routed to output to the browser. FYI: When implemented, this tweak led to the removal of the prototypes Matt placed on his subs. print LIST `print' is overloaded to write to the browser by default. The inherent behavior of print has not been altered and you can still use an alternate filehandle as you normally would. This allows you to use print just as you would in CGI scripts. The following statement would need no modification between CGI and ASP PerlScript: print param('URL'), " was requested by ", $ENV{REMOTE_HOST}, "\n"; Print LIST Prints a string or comma separated list of strings to the browser. Use as if you were using `print' in a CGI application. Print gets around ASP's limitations of 128k in a single $Response->Write() call. NB: `print' calls Print, so you could use either, but print more closely resembles perl. DebugPrint LIST Output is displayed between HTML comments so the output doesn't interfere with page aesthetics. HTMLPrint LIST The same as `Print' except the output is HTML-encoded so that any HTML tags appear as sent, i.e. < becomes <, > becomes > etc. die LIST Prints the contents of LIST to the browser and then exits. die automatically calls $Response->End for you, it also executes any cleanup code you have added with `AddDeathHook'. exit Exits the current script. $Response->End is called automatically for you. Any cleanup code added with `AddDeathHook' is also called. escape LIST Escapes (URL-encodes) a list. Uses ASP object method $Server- >URLEncode(). unescape LIST Unescapes a URL-encoded list. Algorithms ripped from CGI.pm method of the same name. escapeHTML LIST Escapes a list of HTML. Uses ASP object method $Server- >HTMLEncode(). If passed an array reference, escapeHTML will return a reference to the escaped array. unescapeHTML LIST Unescapes an HTML-encoded list. If passed an array reference, unescapeHTML will return a reference to the un-escaped array. param EXPR [, EXPR] Simplifies parameter access and makes switch from GET to POST transparent. Given the following querystring: myscript.asp?x=a&x=b&y=c param() returns ('x', 'y') param('y') returns 'c' param('x') returns ('a', 'b') param('x',1) returns 'a' param('x',2) returns 'b' param_count EXPR Returns the number of times EXPR appears in the request (Form or QueryString). For example, if URL is myscript.asp?x=a&x=b&y=c then param_count('x'); returns 2. AddDeathHook LIST Allows cleanup code to be executed when you `die' or `exit'. Useful for closing database connections in the event of a fatal error. <% my $conn = Win32::OLE-new('ADODB.Connection'); $conn->Open("MyDSN"); $conn->BeginTrans(); ASP::AddDeathHook( sub { $Conn->Close if $Conn; } ); %> Death hooks should be executed on a graceful exit of the script too but this hasn't been confirmed. If anyone has any luck, let me know. AddDeathHook is not exported. BinaryWrite LIST Performs the same function as $Response->BinaryWrite() but gets around Perl's lack of unicode support, and the null padding it uses to get around this. Example: ASP::BinaryWrite($val); BinaryWrite is not exported. SetCookie Name, Value [, HASH] Sets the cookie Name with the value Value. HASH is optional, and contains any of the following optional parameters: -expires => CGI.pm style expires value -domain => domain that the cookie is returned to; eg, ".domain.com" -path => a path that the cookie is returned to. -secure => cookie only returned under SSL if true. If Value is a hash ref, then it creates a cookie dictionary. (see either the ASP docs, or my Introduction to PerlScript for more info on Cookie Dictionaries). Example: ASP::SetCookie("Options", { bg=>'white', text=>'black' }, ( -expires => "+3h", -domain => ".dichosoft.com", -path => "/perl", -secure => 0 ) ); SetCookie is not exported. AUTHOR Tim Hammerquist HISTORY Version 1.00 The escapeHTML() and unescapeHTML() functions now accept array refs as well as lists, as Win32::ASP::HTMLEncode() was supposed to. Thanks to Matt Sergeant for the fix. Version 0.97 Optimized and debugged. Version 0.77 Overloaded warn() and subsequently removed prototypes. Exported $ScriptingNamespace object. Added methods escape(), unescape(), escapeHTML(), unescapeHTML(). Thanks to Bill Odom for pointing these out! Re-implemented SetCookie and BinaryWrite functions. Version 0.11 Optimized and debugged.