Server Side Scripting

Any program on the server that processes client requests such as form submissions from web browser is called a server side script. Basically, it consists of embedding lines of commands and programs in html files using special markup. The start of the file may contain a special command that tells the web server that the file is a script and not plain html. The server then recognizes Commands and procedures as these are enclosed in special markup, for instance pairs of '%' signs or '$' and so on. The web server executes all these commands and sends the result (which is now plain html) to the client. Server side scripting tools include Active Server Pages using Microsoft's special Visual Basic scripting, Cold Fusion using Allaire's ColdFusion Markup Language, PHP pages (originally known as "Personal Home Page Tools") with PHP markup, and JSP or Java Server Pages from sun. Documents that contain server-side scripts usually have the following extensions: *.asp for Active Server Pages, *.cfm or *.cfml for ColdFusion, *.php, *.php3, or *.phtml for PHP pages, and *.jsp for Java server pages. Java servlets are similar to server side scripts. Servlets, however, are actual programs that may call other programs, perform a series of tasks, or generate web pages rather than commands and directives that are embedded in html.

Figure 9d: Server Side Scripting