ASP Tutorial
ASP is an old (but still powerful) tool for making dynamic Web pages.
ASP is a technology (much like PHP) for executing scripts on a web server.
In this tutorial you will learn all you need to know about ASP.
Easy Learning with "Show Example"
This ASP tutorial contains hundreds of examples.
Our "Show Example" tool makes it easy to learn ASP, because it shows ASP code with parallel HTML output.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<%
response.write("My first ASP script!")
%>
</body>
</html>
Show Example »
Click on the "Show Example" button to see how it works!
What is ASP?
- ASP stands for Active Server Pages
- ASP is a Microsoft Technology
- ASP is a program that runs inside a web server
What is an ASP File?
- An ASP file has the file extension ".asp"
- An ASP file is just the same as an HTML file
- An ASP file can contain server scripts in addition to HTML
- Server scripts in an ASP file are executed on the server
What can ASP do for you?
- Edit, change, add content, or customize any web page
- Respond to user queries or data submitted from HTML forms
- Access databases or other server data and return results to a browser
- Provide web security since ASP code cannot be viewed in a browser
- Offer simplicity and speed
How Does it Work?
When a browser requests a normal HTML file, the server just returns the file.
When a browser requests an ASP file, the server passes the request to the ASP engine which reads the ASP file and executes the server scripts in the file.
Finally the ASP file is returned to the browser as plain HTML.
ASP References
At W3Schools you will find complete ASP references about built-in objects and components, and their properties and methods.
ASP Examples
Learn by 100 examples! Because ASP scripts are executed on the server, you can not view ASP code in a browser, you will only see the output from ASP which is plain HTML. At W3Schools every example displays the hidden ASP code. This will make it easier for you to understand how it works.