Chapter 1. Introduction

Visual Basic Scripting Edition, or VBScript for short, is a member of the Visual Basic family of programming languages. Designed as a lightweight scripting language, it is a subset of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), the programming language included as the centerpiece of Microsoft’s retail Visual Basic product, as well as packaged as the programming language in a wide range of third party applications from Microsoft (e.g., the Microsoft Office suite) and third parties (e.g., AutoCAD, from AutoDesk).

VBScript is used primarily in the following four scripted environments:

  • Active Server Pages (ASP), Microsoft’s server-side scripting technology for Internet Information Server (IIS).

  • Outlook forms. (Note that application-level programming introduced in Outlook 2000 relies on VBA.)

  • Windows Script Host (WSH), the scripting technology for automating the Windows desktop.

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), where it is used for client-side scripting. Note, though, that non-Microsoft browsers either do not support client-side scripts or, like Netscape browsers, do not support VBS cript as a scripting language.

VBScript Pocket Reference is a quick-reference guide to the VBScript language as of Version 5.5. It lists a concise description of all language elements by category for both VBScript itself and for the Microsoft Scripting Runtime (scrrun.dll), an additional object library that provides support for associative arrays and filesystem access.

The purpose of this quick ...

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