Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition brings active scripting to a wide variety of environments, including Web client scripting in Microsoft Internet Explorer and Web server scripting in Microsoft Internet Information Service.
If you already know Visual Basic or Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), VBScript will be very familiar. Even if you do not know Visual Basic, once you learn VBScript, you are on your way to programming with the whole family of Visual Basic languages. Although you can learn about VBScript in just these few Web pages, they do not teach you how to program. To learn programming, take a look at Step by Step books available from Microsoft Press.
VBScript talks to host applications using Windows Script. With Windows Script, browsers and other host applications do not require special integration code for each scripting component. Windows Script enables a host to compile scripts, obtain and call entry points, and manage the namespace available to the developer. With Windows Script, language vendors can create standard language run times for scripting. Microsoft will provide run-time support for VBScript. Microsoft is working with various Internet groups to define the Windows Script standard so that scripting engines can be interchangeable. Windows Script is used in Microsoft® Internet Explorer and in Microsoft® Internet Information Service.
As a developer, you can license VBScript source implementation at no charge for use in your products. Microsoft provides binary implementations of VBScript for the 32-bit Windows® API, the 16-bit Windows API, and the Macintosh®. VBScript is integrated with World Wide Web browsers. VBScript and Windows Script can also be used as a general scripting language in other applications.
You can use the SCRIPT element to add VBScript code to an HTML page.
VBScript code is written within paired <SCRIPT> tags. For example, a procedure to test a delivery date might appear as follows:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">
<!--
Function CanDeliver(Dt)
CanDeliver = (CDate(Dt) - Now()) > 2
End Function
-->
</SCRIPT>Beginning and ending <SCRIPT> tags
surround the code. The LANGUAGE attribute indicates the scripting language. You
must specify the language because browsers can use other scripting languages.
Notice that the CanDeliver function is embedded in comment tags
(<!-- and -->). This prevents browsers that don't understand the
<SCRIPT> tag from displaying the code.
Since the example is a general function — it is not tied to any particular form control — you can include it in the HEAD section of the page:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Place Your Order</TITLE>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">
<!--
Function CanDeliver(Dt)
CanDeliver = (CDate(Dt) - Now()) > 2
End Function
-->
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
...You can use SCRIPT blocks anywhere in an HTML page. You can put them in both the BODY and HEAD sections. However, you will probably want to put all general-purpose scripting code in the HEAD section in order to keep all the code together. Keeping your code in the HEAD section ensures that all code is read and decoded before it is called from within the BODY section.
One notable exception to this rule is that you may want to provide inline scripting code within forms to respond to the events of objects in your form. For example, you can embed scripting code to respond to a button click in a form:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Test Button Events</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<FORM NAME="Form1">
<INPUT TYPE="Button" NAME="Button1" VALUE="Click">
<SCRIPT FOR="Button1" EVENT="onClick" LANGUAGE="VBScript">
MsgBox "Button Pressed!"
</SCRIPT>
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>Most of your code will appear in either Sub or Function procedures and will be called only when specified by your code. However, you can write VBScript code outside procedures, but still within a SCRIPT block. This code is executed only once, when the HTML page loads. This allows you to initialize data or dynamically change the look of your Web page when it loads.
The information contained in these pages is intended to provide an introduction to regular expressions in general.
While an attempt has been made to make each topic stand on it's own, much of the information contained in these topics relies upon the understanding of a previously introduced feature or concept. Therefore, it's recommended that you peruse these topics sequentially for the best overall understanding of the material.
The Introduction to Regular Expressions consists of the following individuals topics: