Hi All

Sorry to be irate, but the whole concept of Server.MapPaths really has me in a tiswas!!

In order to confirm once and for all, could you please advise me on the following:

1) There is no difference in putting '/' or '\' in the Server.MapPath param, eg Server.MapPath("/fred/test.asp") or Server.MapPath("\fred\test.asp") - they work the same - correct?

2) I'm finally using my ISP's 'off-world' folder to store my Access DB (yes I know I should be using MSSQL) and I am trying to link my ASP files back to it using Server.MapPath in such a way that my ISP's file server structure and my local file server structure can read the same site without me having to have different connection strings for remote and local work.

To explain my problem, please note the following:

There are 2 folders to start with 1 called <htdocs> and 1 called <private>. The htdocs is the web share folder and the <private> one is the 'off-world' database store. A common practise I believe with IIS ISPs.

In the <htdocs> I have the following folder structures:

root level ... some ASP inc files ...

<incs> folder ... some ASP inc files ... <sprocs> folder ... some ASP inc files ...

<user-data> <pics> my uploaded pics

Now this is where the weirdie comes. If my ASP inc file is in the <incs><sprocs> level my Server.MapPath for accessing the <pics> folder is "../user-data/pics/", however if I have an ASP inc file in the <incs> level then my MapPath is "../../user-data/pics"

How is that?? Surely the <sprocs> folder would need more '../' than the <incs> folder which is one level up?

If somebody could just give me a dummies run-down on how this works I would really appreciate it as I just don't get it.

Thanks

Laphan

1..
Server.MapPath is indifferent on whether you use backslashes or forward slashes. If you do not put a forward or backward slash at the beginning of the string passed into Server.MapPath, the current directory that the ASP page is being executed is used as the base for the physical path. For example, if you had an ASP script running in the Inc directory, which had the physical path C:\InetPub\wwwroot\Inc, the following two lines:

<%= Server.MapPath("somefile.txt") %>
<%= Server.MapPath("/somefile.txt") %>

Would produce different output. The first line would use the current directory's physical path as the path for somefile.txt, and would output C:\InetPub\wwwroot\Inc\somefile.txt. The second line of code, due to the beginning forward slash, would use the root physical path, producing C:\InetPub\wwwroot\somefile.txt as the output.

2..
Whats wrong with having two connection strings?
having a global.inc (or what ever you wish to call it) is a very handy file to hold connection strings, constants, dim commonly used variables, set mail constants etc.. This way you just comment one conn string out and uncomment your local one. As you are probably aware, hosts can often give us a dir structure we wouldt normaly use localy - why change to suit them. An example of how I use this file:

'live
'const URLBase = "http://www.someAddress.com/labfit/"
'local
 const URLBase = "http://localhost/labfit/"
'local
Set Conn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Conn.open "DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ=C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\labfit\DB\dbName.m db"
'live
'Conn.open "DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}; DBQ=" & Server.MapPath("../DB/dbName.mdb")

By using this method you change one file to make dramatic functional changes to your site. If you have your connection string in the head of every page that requires it, remove it, replace it with an include to a global file. If you replicate hosts dir structures every site you do, whats your local file system going to look like after you have built 50 web sites hosted by six different companys all using different dir set ups.

is your 'sprocks' folder inside your 'incs' folder? If so your "../../user-data/pics" path to your pics does not look correct
However, "../user-data/pics/" does, as you said wierd...

Wind is your friend
Matt

Hi Matt

Sorry for the delay in replying to you, but day-to-day work kept me from my PC - bah humbug!

Anyway your in-depth guide was spot on and has finally laid my demons to rest on this subject.

Many thanks.

Rgds

Laphan