Setting the Request Variable dialog box options (ASP)

This dialog box defines an ASP request variable as a source of dynamic content.

To complete the dialog box:

1. Select one of the request collections from the Type pop-up menu.

   For example, if you want to access the information in the Request.ServerVariables collection, select Server Variables. If you want to access the information in the Request.Form collection, select Form.

   The request collections are:

   The QueryString collection retrieves information appended to the sending page’s URL, such as when the page has an HTML form using the GET method. The query string consists of one or more name/value pairs (for example, last=Smith, first=Winston) appended to the URL with a question mark (?). If the query string has more than one name/value pair, they are combined with ampersands (&). For more information, see URL parameters.

   The Form collection retrieves form information included in the body of the HTTP request by an HTML form using the POST method. For more information, see Form parameters.

   The ServerVariables collection retrieves the values of predefined environment variables. The collection has a long list of variables, including CONTENT_LENGTH (the length of content submitted in the HTTP request, which you can use to see if a form is empty), and HTTP_USER_AGENT (provides information about the user’s browser).

   For example, Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_USER_AGENT") contains information about the submitting browser, such as Mozilla/4.07 [en] (WinNT; I), which denotes a Netscape Navigator 4.07 browser.

   For a complete list of ASP server environment variables, see the online documentation installed with Microsoft Personal Web Server (PWS) or Internet Information Server (IIS).

   The Cookies collection retrieves the values of the cookies sent in an HTTP request. For example, suppose the page reads a cookie called "readMe" on the user’s system. On the server, the values of the cookie are stored in the variable Request.Cookies("readMe").

   The ClientCertificate collection retrieves the certification fields from the HTTP request sent by the browser. The certification fields are specified in the X.509 standard.

2. Specify the variable in the collection that you want to access.

   For example, if you want to access the information in the Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_USER_AGENT") variable, enter the argument HTTP_USER_AGENT. If you want to access the information in the Request.Form("lastname") variable, enter the argument lastname.

3. Click OK.

   The request variable appears in the Bindings panel.

Related topics

• Form parameters
• Defining URL parameters
• Defining ASP server variables