Web forms and server side scripting

Web forms and Server
Side Scripting
Sawsan Slii Marzouki
Internet Applicatiosn Development

What is a server?
 Many types of server:
File server
FTP server
Web server
Mail server
News server

Dynamic Interactive Web Server
(3-tier architecture(

General Multi-tier Architecture

Web content
 HTML documents are static
 Dynamic content :
 User side programming (JavaScript, CSS, Ajax,
JQuery……)
 Server side programming (PHP, ASP and ASP.Net,
JSP, Python….)

Why Server Side Programming?
 Accessibility :
Any one can reach Internet.
 Manageability :
Does not require distribution of application code
 Security :
Source code is not exposed
 Scalability : (‫)تطور‬
Web-based 3-tier architecture can scale out

History of web dynamic content
 Common Gateway Interface (CGI) was the
first generation approach to providing
dynamic web content (used scripts)
 Numerous second generation alternatives
were invented (FastCGI, mod_Perl, NSAPI,
ISAPI, Java Servlets…)
 Scripting, the third generation
approach

Scripting, the third generation
approach
 Embed simple code in HTML pages
 The HTML pages use the code to decide what
elements to display and what data should be
displayed.
 Classes and/or subroutines can be called to
compute information for inclusion in the web
page.
 This is know as « scripting ».

Scripting languages or compiled
Scripting languages Compiled languages
Server Side Includes (SSI)
Perl
PHP
ASP (VBScript)
Python
C
C++
ASP.Net
Java Servlet
Java Server Pages

Some approaches to Scripting

JavaServer Pages (JSP) by Sun MicroSystems

Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP): open source
 Cold Fusion (CFML) by Macromedia

Active Server Pages (ASP and ASP.Net) by
MicroSoft

Criteria affecting Scripting choice
 Web Server availability
 Knowledge of language
 Scalability and efficiency
 Personal preference

Learn more about JSP,
PHP and ASP.Net

JSP (Java Server Pages(
 Java-based technology that simplifies the
development of dynamic websites
 Designed around the Java Philosophy
 Packaged with J2EE
 It separates presentation aspects from
programming logic contained in the code.

J2EE Technology
 Web container (application server)
 EJB container
 Servlets : JSP pages running in webServers
 JSP: JavaServer Pages
 Apples, XML, JDBC, …….

JSP Basics
 Individual JSP pages are text files stored on the web
server.
 When a page is first required, then JSP Engine uses
the page to generate a Servlet.
 The compiled Servlet is saved and used to serve
additional requests.
 When a page is modified, the appropriate Servlet is
regenerated.
 Precompilation is also possible

A simple JSP code
 New.java.util.Date().ToString(): creates a date
Object and converts it to a String that can be
displayed

What is PHP?
 Open source Server-Side Scripting language
designed specifically for the web.
 Conceived in 1994.
 Supports a wide-range of databases.
 Perl and C like syntax.
 Designed similar to ASP: you embed
commands into your web pages.

What is PHP?
 Commands are preprocessed by Php
processor and appropriate HTML is sent to
the web server.
 Platoform independant
 Easy to learn
 Usually associated to MySQL database (a
relational free DBMS, can run on Unix,
Windows, and Mac OS).

ASP.Net
 Based on .Net Framework and the common
language runtime (CLR)
 Compiled language
 MicroSoft Only Platforms

web forms and Server
Side Scripting

Steps to Form Processing Script
 Creating the HTML code for the form
<form action="myform.php" method="post">

</form>
The “action” specifies what page to submit the form to.
The “method” indicates how the form is submitted :Get
and Post.
Most of the time, forms will use the “post” method.

Which is your favorite movie?
<input type="text" name="formMovie"
maxlength="50">
<input type="submit" name="formSubmit"
value="Submit">
</form>

 Getting the form data:
The input of type “text” is just a single line field
to type in some text. We give it a name of
“formMovie” .
You have a button submit that submits the whole
form once clicked on.

<?php
if($_POST['formSubmit'] == "Submit")
{
$varMovie = $_POST['formMovie']; }
?>
Which is your favorite movie?
<input type="text" name="formMovie" maxlength="50">
<input type="submit" name="formSubmit" value="Submit">
</form>

 Validating the input:
Suppose we have a user who forgot to enter one of the fields?
We need to validate the form to make sure it’s complete and
filled out with valid information.

<?php
if($_POST['formSubmit'] == "Submit")
{
$errorMessage = "";
if(empty($_POST['formMovie']))
{
$errorMessage .= "<li>You forgot to enter a movie!</li>";
}

if(empty($_POST['formName']))
{
$errorMessage .= "<li>You forgot to enter a
name!</li>";
}
$varMovie = $_POST['formMovie'];
$varName = $_POST['formName'];

if(!empty($errorMessage))
{
echo("<p>There was an error with your
form:</p>n");
echo("<ul>" . $errorMessage . "</ul>n");
}
}
?>

PHP: how to connect to
the server?

PHP: How to connect to the
server?
 Option 1: Website on a hosted server
 Option 2: Install PHP on your computer
 Option 3: XAMPP


Website on a hosted server
 Create a file in Notepad (or similar text editor)
named test.php
 Insert the following code in the file:
<?php echo "Hello World!"; ?>
 Upload the file to your web host.
 Open the file in your browser.
 If the browser writes "Hello World!" your web host
supports PHP and you are ready to go. Otherwise
contact your hosting provider for more information.

Install PHP on your computer
 We will learn more about this option in
practice using EasyPhp.

XAMPP
 Open the program XAMPP Control Panel
 Start the Apache server and the MySql server:
 Create a file in Notepad named test.php .
 Insert the following code in the file:
<?php echo "Hello World!"; ?>
 Save the file in the folder "c:xampphtdocs".
 Open the file in your browser with the address
http://localhost/test.php.
 If the browser writes "Hello World!" the installation is
successful, and you're ready to run PHP on your computer.

Web forms and server side scripting

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