The following is an ASP script that I use to easily connect to a SQL database and do a query without having to retype connection strings and the like. It’s all contained in a Class that should be included in every page you have that calls for database interaction.

Class objDB

' Declare variables to have public scope
Public rs, cn

' Method to initialize the connection to the database
Private Sub Init
   If isobject(cn) = false then
      Set cn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
      Set rs = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
      cn.ConnectionString = "Provider=sqloledb; Data Source=dbpath; Initial Catalog=db; User ID=username; Password=password"
      cn.Open
   End If
End Sub

' Method to destroy objects that were created
Public Sub Destroy
   If isobject(rs) = true then
      rs.Close
      Set rs = Nothing
   End If

   If isobject(cn) = true then
      cn.Close
      Set cn = Nothing
   End If
End Sub

' Method to execute a SQL statement
Public Function SQL(strSQL, bResults)
   If isobject(cn) = false then
      Init
   End If

   If bResults then
      rs.Open strSQL, cn, 1, 1
   Else
      cn.Execute(strSQL)
   End If
End Function

End Class

To use this code in your ASP, create the database object and call the SQL as such:

Set fooDB = New objDB
sql = "SELECT * FROM foobar"
Call fooDB.SQL(sql,true)


Below is a function I use occasionally for dynamically including a text file into an ASP page, particularly when using query strings to select the file. Server-side Includes (SSI) are executed before ASP. This means that even if you code the query string in-line with the SSI, the text will not show up.


<%
Function IncludeText(strFilePath)
Dim fs, fname
Set fs = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set fname = fs.OpenTextFile(Server.MapPath(strFilePath),1)
fname.ReadAll
fname.Close
fs.Close
fname = Nothing
fs = Nothing
End Function
%>


Simple! We’re just creating a file system object, opening the requested file, and reading all its contents to the browser. Since we made this a function, we can call it with a simple line of code.


<%
Call IncludeText(Request.QueryString("pathto/filename.txt"))
%>


If you’re not going to use query strings and just go with a standard file every time, this is probably overly done and you can just use a server-side include.


<!--#include file="./pathto/filename.txt"-->


Have you ever had a div block which acted like a container (such as for centering) for your page content that looked absolutely wonderful on your screen, but when you went to print it, the alignment on paper was atrocious? For a quick fix, try surrounding your CSS block for your div id/class as so:

@media screen {
#container {
yadda yadda
}
}

The @media rule allows you to specify a target for rendering a specific set of CSS commands. Here we are specifying that the #container id be only applied when rendering the page on a screen. When you print the page, the browser will ignore this rule and display the content as if the containing div was not there.

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