Developing ASP components

Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology has become wildly popular with web developers. However, the techniques for developing custom ASP components, not to mention the inevitable snags and pitfalls, are not well documented. What's more, the successful ASP component developer must be a jack-of-all-trades, with some knowledge of COM and COM+, threading models, and the ASP object model, as well as a mastery of one or more language tools and development environments.That's where Developing ASP Components, 2nd Edition, comes in. Its first section explores the topics everyone needs to know to develop effective ASP components: Configuring the ASP development environment. ASP components and the Component Object Model (COM). ASP components and threading models. ASP components and Component Services, which provide a variety of services to ASP components. The objects, properties, methods, and events available in the ASP object model. ASP components are language independent, and developers increasingly tend to use more than a single language tool. Thus the remainder of the book focuses on ASP component development using one of two major development tools--Microsoft Visual Basic and Microsoft Visual C++ (with the ActiveX Template Library)--along with a number of other languages, such as Perl and Delphi. Each section focuses on the issues that concern the ASP component developer using that particular development environment. These issues include: Accessing ASP's intrinsic objects. Accessing data using ADO. Creating n-tier web applications with VB. Handling persistence using MFC along with Visual C++/ATL. It's this strong focus on two major development environments, along with a thorough grounding in essential ASP topics, that makes Developing ASP Components the definitive resource for the ASP application and component developer.

Author Notes

Shelley Powers is an independent contractor, currently living in St. Louis, who specializes in technology architecture and software development. She's authored several computer books, including Developing ASP Components, Unix Power Tools 3rd edition, Essential Blogging, and Practical RDF. In addition, Shelley has also written several articles related primarily to web technology, many for O'Reilly. Shelley's web site network is at http://burningbird.net , and her weblog is Burningbird, at http://weblog.burningbird.net .

Preface	p. xi
1. Writing ASP Components	p. 1
The Role ASP Components Play	p. 2
Why Use ASP Components?	p. 3
COM+ Services and ASP Components	p. 5
Accessing Data with ASP Components	p. 8
Windows 2000 Technologies Accessible from ASP Components	p. 10
A Rose by Any Other Name: Programming Language Choice	p. 11
What About ASP.NET?	p. 13
2. Setting Up the ASP Development Environment	p. 14
Configuring the IIS Environment	p. 15
Remote Administration of IIS	p. 27
Using ADSI to Administer IIS Programmatically	p. 29
IIS Admin Object Overview	p. 46
The IIS Base Admin Objects	p. 59
3. ASP Components and COM	p. 69
Overview of COM for ASP Component Developers	p. 70
How COM Is Implemented	p. 76
Notable COM Interfaces	p. 80
COM Datatypes	p. 87
4. ASP Components, Threads, and Contexts	p. 91
What Are Threads?	p. 92
Threads and Apartments	p. 95
The Threading Models	p. 96
What Are COM+ Contexts?	p. 110
5. COM+ Services and ASP Components and Applications	p. 114
Developing Component-Based Systems	p. 114
The COM+ Interfaces	p. 116
Porting MTS Packages to COM+ Applications	p. 124
Activating COM+ Applications	p. 125
COM+ Services	p. 127
6. ASP Interaction: Scripting and ASP Components	p. 136
Scripting Language Support Within ASP	p. 136
Instantiating Components	p. 139
COM+ Datatypes and Script/Component Interaction	p. 145
Passing Arrays as Parameters	p. 159
Error Handling Between Component and Script	p. 174
7. Creating a Simple Visual Basic ASP Component	p. 180
Creating an In-Process or Out-Of-Process Component	p. 181
Component Instancing	p. 182
Component Execution and Threads	p. 184
Creating an ASP Project	p. 187
Creating Component Methods	p. 188
Generating, Registering, Installing, and Testing the Component	p. 190
Adding Support for COM+ Services	p. 191
Converting MTS Components for Use with COM+	p. 201
Accessing the ASP Built-in Objects	p. 202
Error Handling	p. 220
Debugging	p. 222
Performance Issues	p. 222
8. Creating ASP/ADO Components	p. 225
Accessing ADO from a VB Component	p. 226
Creating a Simple ADO Component	p. 227
The ADO Model	p. 233
File and Directory Access with ADO Streams and the Record Object	p. 256
Persisting Data	p. 262
9. Creating an ASP Middle Tier with ADO	p. 266
How Separate Should the Layers Be?	p. 267
Creating ADO Data Wrappers	p. 268
Defining Business Objects	p. 281
Other Data Integrity Issues	p. 295
10. Server-Side XML Through VB ASP Components	p. 298
XML Basics	p. 298
Formatting XML	p. 302
Working with XML in ASP Applications	p. 307
XML and ADO: Saving Recordsets as XML	p. 315
11. Take a Message: Accessing CDO from ASP Components	p. 321
A Brief Overview of CDO	p. 322
The CDO Object Model	p. 322
Send This URL to a Friend	p. 324
Working with the Message Body	p. 328
Retrieving and Reading Messages	p. 338
12. Working with Active Directory from ASP Applications	p. 344
A Brief Overview of Active Directory in Windows 2000	p. 345
Setting Up an Isolated Active Directory Environment	p. 345
A Refresher on ADSI	p. 347
Binding to Active Directory Objects	p. 349
Using the Active Directory Services Viewer	p. 355
Manipulating Containers	p. 357
Searching Active Directory with ADO	p. 362
ASP Example: Add and Manage Users Through the Web	p. 366
13. Working with MSMQ Components	p. 380
MSMQ/ASP Basics	p. 380
Working with Queues	p. 382
Working with MSMQ Messages	p. 389
Using Transactions	p. 394
Journaling	p. 407
A Brief Word on Message Security	p. 412
14. Creating C++ ASP Components	p. 414
ATL or MFC	p. 415
Using ATL AppWizard to Generate the Basic ASP Component Project	p. 416
Adding an ATL Object	p. 421
Code Changes Based on Adding a New Object	p. 426
Adding Methods to the Interface	p. 427
Adding Support for COM+ Services	p. 432
Converting MTS Components for Use with COM+	p. 440
Accessing the ASP Built-in Objects	p. 444
Error Handling	p. 463
15. Adding Data Access to C++ Components with ADO	p. 468
ADO Access in Visual C++	p. 468
The ADO Object Model	p. 469
The Connection Object	p. 470
The Recordset Object	p. 479
The IADORecordBinding Interface	p. 486
The Command Object	p. 490
Stream and Record Objects	p. 497
16. The CDO Interfaces from C++ Components	p. 506
Accessing CDO Interfaces in C++	p. 506
Creating and Sending a Message	p. 509
Retrieving and Reading Messages	p. 521
17. Accessing Active Directory from C++ Components	p. 528
Binding to Active Directory Objects	p. 529
ADSI Helper Functions	p. 536
Filtering Collections	p. 538
Creating and Removing Active Directory Objects Using ADSI	p. 540
Searching Active Directory with IDirectorySearch	p. 544
18. Accessing MSMQ from C++ ASP Components	p. 550
Adding Support for MSMQ to the C++ Project	p. 550
Working with Queues	p. 553
Searching for a Specific Queue	p. 560
Working with MSMQ Messages	p. 568
Using Transactions	p. 574
19. Persistence with ASP Components Using ATL and MFC	p. 581
Combining MFC and ATL	p. 581
File Access from ASP Components	p. 584
Creating a Serializable Class	p. 588
Persistence Through Object Serialization	p. 591
20. ASP Components Created with Java	p. 596
Creating Java Components	p. 597
Invoking a COM Object in a Java Component	p. 606
Working with COM+ Services	p. 611
The ASP Built-in Object and Helper Interfaces	p. 619
Accessing ADO from Java Components	p. 633
21. Creating ASP Components with Delphi	p. 642
Using the COM Wizards to Create ASP Components	p. 642
Manually Adding Support for COM+/ASP	p. 653
Working with the ASP Objects	p. 660
Working with ADO	p. 668
Working with Windows 2000 Functionality: CDO	p. 672
22. Perl-Based Components Using ActiveState's PDK	p. 677
Setting Up PDK	p. 678
Building a Basic Perl Component	p. 679
Accessing the ASP Built-in Objects	p. 689
Working with Data	p. 709
Working with the Win2K Environment	p. 716
23. Creating Scripting Language Components	p. 719
The Windows Script Components Architecture	p. 719
Elements of a WSC File	p. 722
Script Components and ADO	p. 733
The WSC Wizard	p. 736
Creating Script Components with JScript	p. 741
Accessing Windows 2000 Functionality	p. 744
A. ASP Built-in Object Quick Reference	p. 751
B. The Weaver Database	p. 776
Index	p. 791

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Table of Contents