Can someone please tell me how to code the include files? I have two include files which I want to use one or the other depending on the calling page. The code below does not even include the files in either situation. I displayed the Request("CallingPage") and it was diplaying the calling page as "Trustee". Still it won't include any files. Please tell me what I am doing wrong.

Thanks,
Judy
<%

 If Request("CallingPage") = "" Then

 Else

 End If
 response.write request("callingPage") & "<br>"


%>

Hello jmss66

Is your "callingpage" holding the right variable?

I don't really understand what you are doing here

 If Request("CallingPage") = "" Then

 Else

How are you calling this page, from a link?
I think it should look more like this

if Request.QueryString("CallingPage")="NameofPage" Then

 Else

-----------------------------------------------------------
"Don't follow someone who's not going anywhere" John Mason

First of all... You cannot choose to include one of these files. Both files would be included if the correct syntax was used. The page/document will be processed/scanned for include statements before doing the actual ASP, and therefore you will not get the effect that you are looking for!

The other thing is that the include statement is not ASP, and therefore should be put outside the ASP block. You can actually see the HTML comment 'tags' (), which allow you to write things that are not shown on the page. Put the include statements in the head section instead, knowing that all include statements will be processed.

Hope it helps

Jacob.

Jacob. I do conditional includes all the time and it works for me. Jacob is right, however, that the page will process those include statements first so they must both exist where the code says they exist, even if you are just displaying one.

Are you getting an error at all? Is your includes directory inside the directory the document calling it from is located? If not, you would probably get an error saying 'file not found' or something. If the includes path that you have defined is in the root directory you could try...



ALSO...Have you tried renaming those files (e.g. header.inc.asp to headerinc.asp). Maybe something is screwing up due to your naming convention.

Dave

Take a look at this thread. The topic of conditional includes have been discussed several times in this forum.

BTW... If you want to have the include statement inside an ASP block you should have something like this ...since it is not ASP.

Jacob.

Oops...I didn't notice that jmss66 had no delimiters. I use something like...

<%if Page = "Home" then%>

<%end if%>

and so on. You gotta excuse me, I'm brain dead after a long day.

In the other thread Peter says that every file is in fact included, but the contents of the file is not processed untill the ASP is processed. Therefore if the contents of the file can sit within the if-then-else structure without causeing syntax errors you will probably have no problems, however I can see several drawbacks to this approach; e.g huge load time (loading more than nessesary), limitations on the contents of the include files, lack of readability etc.

However if you are aware of all those things it can probably work as expected. :)

Jacob.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for helping me. Prior to this code. I tried to code it the way you guys suggested :

<% If Request("CallingPage") = "" Then %>

<% Else %>

<% End If %>

Unfortunately I kept getting this error message. That's why I was experimenting on different ways.

Error Type:
Microsoft VBScript compilation (0x800A0411)
Name redefined
/hfrrf/includes/trustee_header.inc.asp, line 19, column 4


This error message is because both header files have the same variable name called "pagename".
The error above can only happen if both include files were getting displayed. Seems like my if..else..end if statement is not working if this is the case. Which is what led me to experiment trying other coding.

Thanks,
Judy

I think you should read the thread that Jacob referred you to. You're missing an important concept about includes.

Your If statement works fine, but include files are included before the page gets processed (that is, before Request("CallingPage") has a meaningful value). That means that regardless the value of Request("CallingPage"), *both files will be included*!!

They may not get processed, but they are included. Since type / variable checking is done before the page is processed, you'll get this error.

In short: dynamic includes won't work they way you're expecting. Take a look here for a couple of "work arounds": http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/080199-1.3.shtml

Cheers,

Imar
---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

I tried to follow the example in the link Imar sent me using a select statement.

<%
Select case Request("CallingPage")
case Trustee %>
   <!--#Include File="includes/trustee_header.inc.asp"--%>
<% Case else %>
   <!--#Include File="includes/header.inc.asp"--%>
<% End Select %>

I got the error message below:

Error Type:
Microsoft VBScript compilation (0x800A03F6)
Expected 'End'
/hfrrf/admin_BoardMinutes.asp, line 184




I just went ahead and deleted the variable name that was common to both headers on one of the file. After doing this, I did not have anymore problem. Thanks for all your help.

Thanks,
Judy