9.3.5- Use Include Files

Use Include Files

Using include files is just one step up from using procedures, as it allows you to make your procedures available to many ASP files. You'll see a really good example of this in the database chapters (beginning with chapter 12 ), where we have an include file that automatically creates an HTML table from data in a database. This file can be included in any ASP script and is run with only one command.

The one thing you have to watch out for, when using include files, is the possibility of changes affecting more than one ASP script. If you have taken out a set of routines and put them into an include file, and then made them available to other ASP developers in your organization, you must be careful not to suddenly change the functionality of those procedures. This could wreak havoc amongst other programs, so be careful when using this method in a shared development environment. To help safeguard against this, make sure you place comments in your include files that describe its purpose and intended output.