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Run Classic ASP in the ASP.net runtime engine

by | Mar 30, 2011 | Recommendations

For all those years of code I have floating around that I will never get around to migrating to .net someone has released this little beauty, faster code in 5 minutes!.

http://aspclassiccompiler.codeplex.com/

 

Project Detail

ASP Classic Compiler is based on our VBScript compiler (sorry, no JScript at this time) that compiles VBScript into a .NET executable. The compiler host is implemented as an ASP.NET handler. The VBScript compiler is based on a hand-written parser and uses Microsoft Dynamic Language Runtime to generate the IL.

This project has two goals:

  1. High backward compatibility. The goal is to be able to run the majority of real world ASP pages under ASP.NET unmodified. This will provide a far smoother experience for migrating ASP Classic to ASP.NET. Currently, most ASP projects have to be migrated as a whole because ASP Classic and ASP.NET do not share states. ASP Classic Compiler will run ASP pages under the context of ASP.NET so they share the same state and security. This allows projects to be migrated page by page.
  2. Modernize the VBScript. For those who need a scripting language like VBScript, we intend to improve the VBScript. First of all, we will improve performance using techniques like callsite caching. Secondly, the VBScript compiler natively uses .NET types so it can use .NET Framework classes without registering them as COM.

Note that this codeplex project uses some non-open-sourced components, in particular, the VBScript compiler. Please see FAQ for more details. However, while this project is in beta, feel free to use this project for non-production use.

Please visit the Features page for features and limitations. If you encounter an incompatibility, do no modify your page yet. Instead, use Issue Tracker to post bugs and feature requests. Take a vote so that we know the priorities. It is our goal to run most real-world ASP pages without modification.

Typical scenarios to use ASP Classic Compiler

  1. When you need to run ASP and ASP.NET side-by-site, ASP Classic Compiler runs your pages inside the ASP.NET runtime. You can migrate page by page and take advantage of the ASP.NET infrastructure immediately.
  2. When you want to run ASP pages faster, ASP Classic Compiler runs the same page up to a few times faster using the latest technology in Dynamic Language Runtime. Pages can run even faster if they are modified to use ASP.NET cache and .NET StringBuilder.
  3. When you run ASP in Cassini (the built-in web server in ASP.NET), ASP Classic Compiler is the only solution to run ASP pages inside Cassini.
  4. Windows Azure application in the cloud, as it is an ASP.NET application. Windows Azure does not support ASP Classic. You can run php but you have to run it in full-trust. ASP Classic Compiler can run in standard partial-trust since it is just another ASP application. You can even deploy pages to Azure storage so that you do not need to repackage your application to deploy a change.
  5. As view in ASP.NET MVC. Since ASP tends to generate html directly, it is more natural to migrate ASP pages to ASP.NET MVC than ASP.NET WebForms. We will provide a view engine so that the ASP Classic Compiler can be used as a view engine for ASP.NET MVC.
  6. As the template engine for a code generator. The ASP Classic Compiler can be hosted anywhere from a console to a GUI application. We run ASP Classic Compiler in our unit testing project.
  7. When you want to deploy a dynamic website on a read-only media/devices, it is possible to package ASP Classic Compiler with an embedded web server (e.g. Cassini) and database (e.g., SQL Server Compact edition) to run from a CD-ROM. ASP Classic Compiler generates code in memory. Users can run it when logging into the standard user account without requiring elevated privileges. .NET 2.0 is the only thing that needs to be preinstalled. IIS is not needed.