VBScript Programmer's Reference, Third Edition

Chapter 7. The Scripting Runtime Objects

This chapter introduces some powerful objects that are available for use in your VBScript code. You can think of these as utility objects, because they are designed to be reusable in a variety of situations. This chapter also introduces the Dictionary object, which is a useful and more versatile replacement for arrays, as well as the family of objects in the FileSystemObject hierarchy. The objects in the FileSystemObject family offer pretty much everything you need for interacting with the Windows file system.

This chapter starts off with a brief overview of the basic syntax, rules, and recommendations for using objects in VBScript. For those who have been working through the previous chapters on VBScript fundamentals, the first sections of this chapter continue along that course. The rest of the chapter introduces some powerful objects you will find useful in many of your scripts. If you are already familiar with the basics of using objects in VBScript, and if you are looking primarily for how-to information on the runtime objects, you may want to skip ahead to those sections of the chapter.

What Are Runtime Objects?

These objects are described as runtime objects because they exist in a separate component, apart from the core VBScript interpreter. They are not an official part of the VBScript language. (In fact, because they are in a separate component — commonly referred to as the "scripting runtime" — they can also be invoked from Visual ...