=pod

=head1 NAME

Apache2::ASP::Manual::ASP_Compilation - Documentation about ASP Compilation

=head1 DESCRIPTION

When Apache2::ASP receives a request for an ASP script, it goes through the following steps:

=over 4

=item 1 Does the ASP script exist?

=item 2 Was it already compiled?

=item 3 Is the ASP script newer?

=item 4 Recompile the ASP script if necessary.

=item 5 Load up the *.pm file.

=item 6 Execute the *.pm file.

=back

ASP Scripts are "compiled" into Perl modules that look like the following:

  #==============================================================================
  # THIS FILE WAS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED BY Apache2::ASP::PageHandler.
  # TIMESTAMP: Thu Jun 28 23:18:17 2007
  # CHANGES TO THIS FILE WILL BE OVERWRITTEN WHEN THE ASP SCRIPT IS CHANGED
  #==============================================================================
  package DefaultApp::index_asp;
  use strict;
  use warnings 'all';
  no warnings 'redefine';
  use base 'Apache2::ASP::PageHandler';
  use vars qw(
    $Session    $Server
    $Request    $Response
    $Form       $Application
    $Config
  );
  our $TIMESTAMP = 1183094297;
  #line 1
  sub process_request { $Response->Write(q~~);
    $Response->Write("Hello, World!");
    return;
  ;$Response->Write(q~
  ~);
  }
  1;# return true:
  
  =pod
  
  =head2 process_request( )
  
  =cut

Yes, you guessed it.  This one prints "Hello, World!" to the browser.

=head1 FILE NAMES

If your ASP script is C</index.asp> then your *.pm file will be C<index_asp.pm>.

If your ASP script is C</members/bob/bio.asp> then your *.pm file will be C<members_bob_bio_asp.pm>.

And so on.

=head1 WHAT IS THE POINT?

ASP scripts are compiled to Perl modules and stored on disk for 2 reasons:

=head2 Performance

Even though the ASP parser is quite fast (L<Apache2::ASP::Parser>) it is still extra work that can be avoided.

By storing the resulting output on disk we can reduce some overhead and get a slight performance boost.

=head2 Testing

Yes - you can test your ASP scripts using L<Devel::Cover> just like any other Perl module.

You can learn more about this by reading up on L<Apache2::ASP::Test::UserAgent>.

Please read the Testing Intro at L<http://apache2-asp.no-ip.org/how-to/website-code-coverage-testing.asp>
to see how testing works.

=head1 BUGS

It's possible that some bugs have found their way into this release.

Use RT L<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Apache2-ASP> to submit bug reports.

=head1 HOMEPAGE

Please visit the Apache2::ASP homepage at L<http://www.devstack.com/> to see examples
of Apache2::ASP in action.

=head1 AUTHOR

John Drago L<mailto:jdrago_999@yahoo.com>

=head1 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright 2007 John Drago, All rights reserved.

This software is free software.  It may be used and distributed under the
same terms as Perl itself.

=cut