4GuysFromRolla.com - Debugging your ASP Scripts

Windows Systems Administrator
Jupitermedia
US-CT-Darien

Published: Wednesday, February 10, 1999

Debugging your ASP Scripts
By Abd Shomad

Wouldn't it be nice if you could debug all of your scripts which use collections by writing a single line of code such as:

- continued - 

Call DebugCollection

When you are designing forms and collect it's fields value(s) to be processed on other page, you often mix up with the form input values. If you're smart enough, maybe you will send the form information to a "special debug page" containing special debugging script. But there's a better way to debug the form collection (and any other collection, off course):

- -- Write your debugging script on "special included file". -- -

First, you can save your time to *not to copy and paste* the debugging code on another page. Secondly, you may add new features to the debugging page once new features available.

If you see at the sample include file (see sample code below), I write the debugging code only for:

As IIS 4.0 released, Microsoft added new collections:

we can leverage the new capabilities into our debug page.

I save all the include files on special virtual directory named "/include". I name the file "collection.inc":

When we need to debug our form, querystring or any other collection, we need only to write (or copy and paste) the code below:

and your debugging process getting very much easier than ever. And when you think that you no longer need to debug your form, just delete it.

Here is the included file at my "/include" virtual directory.


- --- FILE: "collection.inc" --- -
<% ' Purpose: Display all the application collections %>
<!-- Content -->

<!--
The Application and Session Variable collection is a new features of
IIS 4.0 the code below was added since IIS 4.0 released
-->
<h3> Application Variable Collection </h3>
<%
On Error Resume Next
For Each Item in Application.Contents
  Response.Write Item & " = " & Application.Contents(Item) & "<BR>"
  For Each ItemKey in Application.Contents(Item)
    Response.Write "Sub Item: " & Item & " (" & ItemKey & ") : " _
    & Application.Contents(Item)(ItemKey) & "<br>"
  Next
Next ' Key
if err.no > 0 Then Display "You must upgrade to IIS 4.0 in order to use the
Application Collection<br>"
%>

<!-- All collections at the code below are available at IIS 3.0 -->
<h3> Session Variable Collection </h3>
<%
On Error Resume Next
For Each Item in Session.Contents
  Response.write Item & " = " & Session.Contents(Item) & "<BR>"
  For Each ItemKey in Session.Contents(Item)
    Response.Write "Sub Item: " & Item & " (" & ItemKey & ") : " _
    & Session.Contents(Item)(ItemKey) & "<br>"
  Next
Next
if err.no > 0 Then Display "You must upgrade to IIS 4.0 in order to use the
Session Collection<br>"
%>

<h3> QueryString Collection </h3>
<%
For Each Item in Request.QueryString
  For iCount = 1 to Request.QueryString(Item).Count
    Response.Write Item & " = " & Request.QueryString(Item)(iCount) & "<br>"
  Next
Next
%>

<h3> Form Collection </h3>
<%
For Each Item in Request.Form
  For iCount = 1 to Request.Form(Item).Count
    Response.Write Item & " = " & Request.Form(Item)(iCount) & "<br>"
  Next
Next
%>

<h3> Cookies Collection </h3>
<%
For Each Item in Request.Cookies
  If Request.Cookies(Item).HasKeys Then
    'use another For...Each to iterate all keys of dictionary
    For Each ItemKey in Request.Cookies(Item)
      Response.Write "Sub Item: " & Item & "(" & ItemKey & ")"
      Response.Write " = " & Request.Cookies(Item)(ItemKey)
    Next
  Else
    'Print out the cookie string as normal
    Response.Write Item & " = " & Request.Cookies(Item) & "<br>"
  End If
Next
%>

<h3> ClientCertificate Collection </h3>
<%
For Each Item in Request.ClientCertificate
  For iCount = 1 to Request.ClientCertificate(Item).Count
    Response.Write Item & " = " & Request.ClientCertificate(Item)(iCount) _
    & "<br>"
  Next
Next
%>
<h3> ServerVariables Collection </h3>
<%
For Each Item in Request.ServerVariables
  For iCount = 1 to Request.ServerVariables(Item).Count
    Response.Write Item & " = " & Request.ServerVariables(Item)(iCount) _
    & "<br>"
  Next
Next
%>
<p><font SIZE="2"><cite>Modified code from Wrox Press Limited</cite></font>

If you think that you will always use this debugging script and you want to call the debugging process by only typing

Call DebugCollection

Then add code below to your global functions collection.


<% Sub DebugCollection %>
    <!--#include virtual="/include/DebugCollection.inc"-->
<% End Sub %>

I prefer not to write this code to my GLOBAL.INC file because All included files are called before IIS execute the script, on other words, why do we need to load functions that we rare to use? it will consume our CPU processing! But again, the answer is on your own.

Happy Scripting, eh, programming ... :-)

P.S. almost all my ASP file has reference to my GLOBAL.INC file.

Happy Programming!

This article was written by Abd Shomad, currently a student of School of Telecommunication Technology (STTTelkom) Bandung, Indonesia. Abd is involved in many research projects on Internet related science and often leads some real work teams during his studies.