[Paladin]

I need to know what would be the best thing to use to search a database (text based probably, and generated by VB) and return a html page with the values it gets filled into templates or something suitable. Ive no experience at this, so any advice on what language would be simplist to use for this task.

Ive seen a few that use asp that look like they do the job (search for values withing a certain range and return a set of results as a web page).

What exactly does asp use anyway? What code is it based on?

Thanks.

[Kali]

If your using a database type structure or an actual SQL Server or similar, by filling it with values from a VB program then your best bet is ASP, as its based on or is (i dont know the history) VB itself and will therefore be able to understand the values without any pre-post formatting on your part, although any language should be able to read from the db regardless.

[The Corinthian]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I need to know what would be the best thing to use to search a database (text based probably, and generated by VB) and return a html page with the values it gets filled into templates or something suitable.
</font>

If your db is CSV based you might register it on the server using a DSN and access it using ODBC. If you can't register a DSN hack a driver for it.

Failing all that you could do some sort of text search function, in ASP-VBS, based on something like this v. basic function:

Function isPresent(sNeedle, sHaystack)
If InStr(LCase(sHaystack), LCase(sNeedle)) Then
isPresent = True
Else
isPresent = False
End If
End Function

Better still use regular expressions in your text search, which are now supported in VBS.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
Ive seen a few that use asp that look like they do the job (search for values withing a certain range and return a set of results as a web page).
</font>

Most of these ten to use M$ Index Server with does all the complicated search stuff for you and con be implemented via ASP scripts. Unfortunately Index Server is full of security holes, so I would not recomend using (or even installing) it

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
What exactly does asp use anyway? What code is it based on?
</font>

None Actually. ASP is more of an architecture than a language. Essentially it allows one to code on the server by accessing a number of simple objects. What language you use to access these objects is up to you, although VBScript is the most popular (cheaper to hire VB code monkeys, you see ). ASP can also be coded using JavaScript, PerlScript and (I kid you not) COBOL

[Paladin]

Cool. Thanks. That sounds easier than I expected. Hopefully it will be

[mewso]

You can do simple searches using asp to send sql 'like'' statements to the database. That normally can do the job but either way Pal give me a shout if you need any help as I'm well up on the client to database stuff. It's my job