holding a connection object across several ASP pages

[Michael Bosco]

Hi. I am new to ASP. I need to create a "wizard" using a SQL 7
database that will display a few forms and collect data from the user.
My initial thought to handle this is to build my connection on the
first page and begin a transaction. As the user progresses through
the different screens, I would insert the data and finally commit the
data on the last page. The user will always have a cancel button
available to them for the rollback. However, with this method, the
connection object would have to be available to all the pages. With
the little ASP experience I have, I've found that all objects created
in a page is only available to that one page. Is it possible to have
my connection object available for all the necessary pages? This is
just my first crack at this, so if anyone can think of a better way to
do this, that would be appreciated also. Thanks for all the help.

Mike

[Ray at]

It is outstanding that you asked, because you could have wound up taking the
wrong path. :]

In my opinion, it is better that you just carry your data from page to page
by some other means (cookies, session variables, hidden inputs on forms,
querystring) and then on the final "committal" page, when the user submits,
that is when you connect to your DB and insert the data.

While it is possible to open a connection to a DB and carry it from page to
page, it is <strong>strongly ill-advised</strong>. Also, if you did do this
and your users cancelled, you'd have a bunch of meaningless, incomplete data
in your database, well, except that you said you'd do it as a transaction,
so I guess you're thinking you'd roll back. My suggestion is to make one
connection on the final page and don't touch the DB before that (unless you
need to for other reasons of course).

Ray at work

"Michael Bosco" <mbosco51@si.rr.com> wrote in message
news:2ccffbac.0401211431.6c920e26@posting.google.c om...

> Hi. I am new to ASP. I need to create a "wizard" using a SQL 7
> database that will display a few forms and collect data from the user.
> My initial thought to handle this is to build my connection on the
> first page and begin a transaction. As the user progresses through
> the different screens, I would insert the data and finally commit the
> data on the last page. The user will always have a cancel button
> available to them for the rollback. However, with this method, the
> connection object would have to be available to all the pages. With
> the little ASP experience I have, I've found that all objects created
> in a page is only available to that one page. Is it possible to have
> my connection object available for all the necessary pages? This is
> just my first crack at this, so if anyone can think of a better way to
> do this, that would be appreciated also. Thanks for all the help.
>
> Mike

[Tom Kaminski [MVP]]

"Michael Bosco" <mbosco51@si.rr.com> wrote in message
news:2ccffbac.0401211431.6c920e26@posting.google.c om...

> Hi. I am new to ASP. I need to create a "wizard" using a SQL 7
> database that will display a few forms and collect data from the user.
> My initial thought to handle this is to build my connection on the
> first page and begin a transaction. As the user progresses through
> the different screens, I would insert the data and finally commit the
> data on the last page. The user will always have a cancel button
> available to them for the rollback. However, with this method, the
> connection object would have to be available to all the pages. With
> the little ASP experience I have, I've found that all objects created
> in a page is only available to that one page. Is it possible to have
> my connection object available for all the necessary pages? This is
> just my first crack at this, so if anyone can think of a better way to
> do this, that would be appreciated also. Thanks for all the help.

Bad idea ...
[url]http://www.aspfaq.com/show.asp?id=2053[/url]

--
Tom Kaminski IIS MVP
[url]http://www.iistoolshed.com/[/url] - tools, scripts, and utilities for running IIS
[url]http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/[/url]
[url]http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/community/centers/iis/[/url]