Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology has become wildlypopular 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.
• Integrating ASP components and scripted Active Server Pages.

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, 2nd Edition, the definitive resource for the ASP application and component developer.

Contents

Preface

1. Writing ASP Components
     The Role ASP Components Play
     Why Use ASP Components?
     COM+ Services and ASP Components
     Accessing Data with ASP Components
     Windows 2000 Technologies Accessible from ASP Components
     A Rose by Any Other Name: Programming Language Choice
     What About ASP.NET?

2. Setting Up the ASP Development Environment
     Configuring the IIS Environment
     Remote Administration of IIS
     Using ADSI to Administer IIS Programmatically
     IIS Admin Object Overview
     The IIS Base Admin Objects

3. ASP Components and COM
     Overview of COM for ASP Component Developers
     How COM Is Implemented
     Notable COM Interfaces
     COM Datatypes

4. ASP Components, Threads, and Contexts
     What Are Threads?
     Threads and Apartments
     The Threading Models
     What Are COM+ Contexts?

5. COM+ Services and ASP Components and Applications
     Developing Component-Based Systems
     The COM+ Interfaces
     Porting MTS Packages to COM+ Applications
     Activating COM+ Applications
     COM+ Services

6. ASP Interaction: Scripting and ASP Components
     Scripting Language Support Within ASP
     Instantiating Components
     COM+ Datatypes and Script/Component Interaction
     Passing Arrays as Parameters
     Error Handling Between Component and Script

7. Creating a Simple Visual Basic ASP Component
     Creating an In-Process or Out-Of-Process Component
     Component Instancing
     Component Execution and Threads
     Creating an ASP Project
     Creating Component Methods
     Generating, Registering, Installing, and Testing the Component
     Adding Support for COM+ Services
     Converting MTS Components for Use with COM+
     Accessing the ASP Built-in Objects
     Error Handling
     Debugging
     Performance Issues

8. Creating ASP/ADO Components
     Accessing ADO from a VB Component
     Creating a Simple ADO Component
     The ADO Model
     File and Directory Access with ADO Streams and the Record Object
     Persisting Data

9. Creating an ASP Middle Tier with ADO
     How Separate Should the Layers Be?
     Creating ADO Data Wrappers
     Defining Business Objects
     Other Data Integrity Issues

10. Server-Side XML Through VB ASP Components
     XML Basics
     Formatting XML
     Working with XML in ASP Applications
     XML and ADO: Saving Recordsets as XML

11. Take a Message: Accessing CDO from ASP Components
     A Brief Overview of CDO
     The CDO Object Model
     Send This URL to a Friend
     Working with the Message Body
     Retrieving and Reading Messages

12. Working with Active Directory from ASP Applications
     A Brief Overview of Active Directory in Windows 2000
     Setting Up an Isolated Active Directory Environment
     A Refresher on ADSI
     Binding to Active Directory Objects
     Using the Active Directory Services Viewer
     Manipulating Containers
     Searching Active Directory with ADO
     ASP Example: Add and Manage Users Through the Web

13. Working with MSMQ Components
     MSMQ/ASP Basics
     Working with Queues
     Working with MSMQ Messages
     Using Transactions
     Journaling
     A Brief Word on Message Security

14. Creating C++ ASP Components
     ATL or MFC
     Using ATL AppWizard to Generate the Basic ASP Component Project
     Adding an ATL Object
     Code Changes Based on Adding a New Object
     Adding Methods to the Interface
     Adding Support for COM+ Services
     Converting MTS Components for Use with COM+
     Accessing the ASP Built-in Objects
     Error Handling

15. Adding Data Access to C++ Components with ADO
     ADO Access in Visual C++
     The ADO Object Model
     The Connection Object
     The Recordset Object
     The IADORecordBinding Interface
     The Command Object
     Stream and Record Objects

16. The CDO Interfaces from C++ Components
     Accessing CDO Interfaces in C++
     Creating and Sending a Message
     Retrieving and Reading Messages

17. Accessing Active Directory from C++ Components
     Binding to Active Directory Objects
     ADSI Helper Functions
     Filtering Collections
     Creating and Removing Active Directory Objects Using ADSI
     Searching Active Directory with IDirectorySearch

18. Accessing MSMQ from C++ ASP Components
     Adding Support for MSMQ to the C++ Project
     Working with Queues
     Searching for a Specific Queue
     Working with MSMQ Messages
     Using Transactions

19. Persistence with ASP Components Using ATL and MFC
     Combining MFC and ATL
     File Access from ASP Components
     Creating a Serializable Class
     Persistence Through Object Serialization

20. ASP Components Created with Java
     Creating Java Components
     Invoking a COM Object in a Java Component
     Working with COM+ Services
     The ASP Built-in Object and Helper Interfaces
     Accessing ADO from Java Components

21. Creating ASP Components with Delphi
     Using the COM Wizards to Create ASP Components
     Manually Adding Support for COM+/ASP
     Working with the ASP Objects
     Working with ADO
     Working with Windows 2000 Functionality: CDO

22. Perl-Based Components Using ActiveState's PDK
     Setting Up PDK
     Building a Basic Perl Component
     Accessing the ASP Built-in Objects
     Working with Data
     Working with the Win2K Environment

23. Creating Scripting Language Components
     The Windows Script Components Architecture
     Elements of a WSC File
     Script Components and ADO
     The WSC Wizard
     Creating Script Components with JScript
     Accessing Windows 2000 Functionality

A. ASP Built-in Object Quick Reference

B. The Weaver Database

Index