Autodesk 15606-011408-9300 - MAP R6.3 UPG, Developer'S Manual

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Chapter 6 Using Reports to Query and Update Data Sources
Introducing ColdFusion and ASP
The examples in this chapter were created using two report engines,
Macromedia ColdFusion and Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP). ColdFu-
sion and ASP are
application servers . An application server is an application
that works with the Web server to provide additional Web functionality. Like
the Web server, it runs in the background as a Windows
®
NT service.
Both products work essentially the same way. You build Web pages that
include special tags, and when a Web browser requests one of those pages,
the application server interprets the tags, replaces them with the results of
the specified calculations or database queries, and then sends the completed
page to the Web server. The Web server then sends the page to the browser
to be displayed. Because the processing is done by the server, the end-user
sees only the final HTML output, not the code used to create that output. (Of
course, the HTML can include anything— even client-side scripting code!)
Although end-users can view the source of your HTML output, they never see
the server-side scripting code used to create that output.
This developer’s guide uses ColdFusion and ASP for its examples because
developing with these products is easier than writing your own Perl scripts or
Visual Basic/C++ DLLs, and because these products are by far the most
common platforms for Autodesk MapGuide server-side application develop-
ment. ColdFusion is available from Macromedia, and ASP is included as part
of Windows 2000 and Windows NT Server 4.0 with the Windows NT 4.0
Option Pack. Although the examples are specific to ColdFusion and ASP, the
concepts are general, applying to Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and to
other application servers as well.
ColdFusion supports both Microsoft
®
Internet Information Server
®
(IIS) and
the Netscape
®
Web servers. ASP supports IIS only, meaning that it, and your
map applications, can only be run on the Microsoft Web server. Keep in
mind, though, that this does not affect your users; the HTML pages you
produce can be read by any Web
browser . The limitation exists only for the
Web server .