Active Scripting
Encyclopedia
Active Scripting is the technology used in Windows
to implement component-based scripting support. It is based on COM
(more precisely, OLE Automation
) and allows installation of additional scripting engines in the form of COM modules.
(August 1996) and Internet Information Services
3.0 products (December 1996).
Usual applications of Active Scripting include Active Server Pages
(ASP) server scripts
, Internet Explorer
, and Windows Script Host
(WSH) scripts automating routine tasks, including use for login scripts, Registry
manipulation, and the like. Other administrative uses include Windows Management Instrumentation
and Active Directory
Service Interfaces. Active Scripting can also be used for general-purpose scripting, such as database programming, text-processing, rapid prototyping, and application macro/scripting programming; some applications use Active Scripting as the main automation method, others do not have a macro facility but the components are available for use via the API; or one may opt to add a language and/or tool not available by default, like programming Microsoft Excel
in Perl
or REXX
rather than Visual Basic for Applications
(VBA) or transferring data from a terminal emulator
to word processor
by way of a spreadsheet
when they have dissimilar macro tools or none at all.
For many of the above uses, Active Scripting is an addition to Windows which could be said to be similar to the functionality of Unix shell scripts, as well as an incrementation upon batch files (command.com), Windows NT style shell scripts (cmd.exe) and can even be said to be, by way of VBScript
, the replacement for QBasic
– which was last available on the supplementary disc for Windows 95. The majority of the languages used for Active Scripting mentioned below are therefore glue language
s and Perl
is the most commonly-used third-party script engine.
The interfaces to Active Scripting engines are public, so any developer can create his own applications that are programmable in Active Scripting languages as well as engines for additional languages.
VBScript and JScript
engines are included with the default installation of Windows versions after Windows 95
, and are an optional install with CE
. According to Microsoft and third-party documentation, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a third default scripting engine and is part of the Windows installation and therefore present even if there is not an installation of Microsoft Office
, WordPerfect Office
, or other software packages which are VBA-programmable. Active Scripting engines for other languages are also available; many are free, some are proprietary (commercial), and at least one shareware
engine (a Tcl
engine in the beta stage of development) is extant. For example, one can add support for Perl
and Python
scripting to Windows by installing the ActiveState
Active Scripting engines which are included in the ActivePerl and ActivePython
distributions. The standard PHP
installation for Windows includes an engine known as ActivePHP and PHPScript in various versions. Scripting engines implementing other variants of Basic, Haskell
, PHP
, REXX (multiple versions), Delphi
, XSLT
, Tcl
, Ruby
and other languages are also available.
In Windows, CScript.exe at the command line and WScript.exe running in the GUI are the main means of implementation of installed Active Script languages. Clicking on an icon or running from the command line, a script, the Run dialogue, &c. will by default run a plain text file containing the code. Windows Script File
s (.wsf) are an XML
file which can contain more than one script in more than one language in addition to other elements, and are executed by the Windows Script Host.
The third-party shell Take Command
can, as of version 10, be configured for direct interoperability with the script host and its installed engines.
The script host, related components, and engines are able to be integrated into and called from Windows applications just like any other component.
in favor of .NET
, with some continuing use of run-time interpretation of JScript with JScript .NET
and VBScript within ASP.NET
. No new versions of the active scripting engines will be developed and they are now being supported by Microsoft's Sustaining Engineering Team, who are responsible for bug fixes and security enhancements. However version 5.6 of the scripting engines will continue to be shipped with future releases of Microsoft Windows and IIS. Microsoft has also introduced Windows PowerShell
which can expose applications via PowerShell cmdlets and/or PowerShell providers.
Originally, the .NET Framework had a scripting technology of its own and a separate scripting IDE called Visual Studio for Applications (VSA), and the interfaces to the technology were also available via Active Scripting, allowing even .NET-unaware applications to be scripted using .NET languages. VSA was also meant to replace Visual Basic for Applications.
However, that entire technology was deprecated in version 2.0 of the .NET Framework, leaving no clear upgrade path for applications desiring Active Scripting support (although "scripts" can be created in C#, VBScript, Visual Basic .NET
, and other .NET languages, which can be compiled
and executed at run-time via libraries installed as part of the standard .NET runtime).
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
to implement component-based scripting support. It is based on COM
Component Object Model
Component Object Model is a binary-interface standard for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993. It is used to enable interprocess communication and dynamic object creation in a large range of programming languages...
(more precisely, OLE Automation
OLE Automation
In Microsoft Windows applications programming, OLE Automation , is an inter-process communication mechanism based on Component Object Model that was intended for use by scripting languages – originally Visual Basic – but now are used by languages run on Windows...
) and allows installation of additional scripting engines in the form of COM modules.
Uses and history
The Active Scripting technologies were first released in 1996, with the release of the Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0Internet Explorer 3
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 is a graphical web browser released on August 13, 1996 by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and on January 8, 1997 for Apple Mac OS . It began serious competition against Netscape Navigator in the first Browser war...
(August 1996) and Internet Information Services
Internet Information Services
Internet Information Services – formerly called Internet Information Server – is a web server application and set of feature extension modules created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft Windows. It is the most used web server after Apache HTTP Server. IIS 7.5 supports HTTP, HTTPS,...
3.0 products (December 1996).
Usual applications of Active Scripting include Active Server Pages
Active Server Pages
Active Server Pages , also known as Classic ASP or ASP Classic, was Microsoft's first server-side script engine for dynamically-generated Web pages. Initially released as an add-on to Internet Information Services via the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Active Server Pages (ASP), also known as Classic...
(ASP) server scripts
Server-side scripting
Server-side scripting is a web server technology in which a user's request is verified by running a script directly on the web server to generate dynamic web pages. It is usually used to provide interactive web sites that interface to databases or other data stores. This is different from...
, Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
, and Windows Script Host
Windows Script Host
The Microsoft Windows Script Host is an automation technology for Microsoft Windows operating systems that provides scripting capabilities comparable to batch files, but with a greater range of supported features...
(WSH) scripts automating routine tasks, including use for login scripts, Registry
Windows registry
The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores configuration settings and options on Microsoft Windows operating systems. It contains settings for low-level operating system components as well as the applications running on the platform: the kernel, device drivers, services, SAM, user...
manipulation, and the like. Other administrative uses include Windows Management Instrumentation
Windows Management Instrumentation
Windows Management Instrumentation is a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification...
and Active Directory
Active Directory
Active Directory is a directory service created by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems. Server computers on which Active Directory is running are called domain controllers....
Service Interfaces. Active Scripting can also be used for general-purpose scripting, such as database programming, text-processing, rapid prototyping, and application macro/scripting programming; some applications use Active Scripting as the main automation method, others do not have a macro facility but the components are available for use via the API; or one may opt to add a language and/or tool not available by default, like programming Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
in Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
or REXX
REXX
REXX is an interpreted programming language that was developed at IBM. It is a structured high-level programming language that was designed to be both easy to learn and easy to read...
rather than Visual Basic for Applications
Visual Basic for Applications
Visual Basic for Applications is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6 and its associated integrated development environment , which are built into most Microsoft Office applications...
(VBA) or transferring data from a terminal emulator
Terminal emulator
A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....
to word processor
Word processor
A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
by way of a spreadsheet
Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...
when they have dissimilar macro tools or none at all.
For many of the above uses, Active Scripting is an addition to Windows which could be said to be similar to the functionality of Unix shell scripts, as well as an incrementation upon batch files (command.com), Windows NT style shell scripts (cmd.exe) and can even be said to be, by way of VBScript
VBScript
VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It is designed as a “lightweight” language with a fast interpreter for use in a wide variety of Microsoft environments...
, the replacement for QBasic
QBasic
QBasic is an IDE and interpreter for a variant of the BASIC programming language which is based on QuickBASIC. Code entered into the IDE is compiled to an intermediate form, and this intermediate form is immediately interpreted on demand within the IDE. It can run under nearly all versions of DOS...
– which was last available on the supplementary disc for Windows 95. The majority of the languages used for Active Scripting mentioned below are therefore glue language
Glue language
A glue language is a programming language used for connecting software components together.Examples of glue languages:* Unix Shell scripts * Windows NT type Shell scripts...
s and Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
is the most commonly-used third-party script engine.
The interfaces to Active Scripting engines are public, so any developer can create his own applications that are programmable in Active Scripting languages as well as engines for additional languages.
VBScript and JScript
JScript
JScript is a scripting language based on the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.JScript is implemented as a Windows Script engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to any application that supports Windows Script, such as Internet Explorer, Active Server Pages,...
engines are included with the default installation of Windows versions after Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, and are an optional install with CE
Windows CE
Microsoft Windows CE is an operating system developed by Microsoft for embedded systems. Windows CE is a distinct operating system and kernel, rather than a trimmed-down version of desktop Windows...
. According to Microsoft and third-party documentation, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a third default scripting engine and is part of the Windows installation and therefore present even if there is not an installation of Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
, WordPerfect Office
WordPerfect Office
WordPerfect Office is an office suite developed by Corel Corporation. As of March 2010, the latest version is WordPerfect Office X5 , which is available in three editions: Home & Student, Standard and Professional....
, or other software packages which are VBA-programmable. Active Scripting engines for other languages are also available; many are free, some are proprietary (commercial), and at least one shareware
Shareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
engine (a Tcl
Tcl
Tcl is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. Originally "born out of frustration", according to the author, with programmers devising their own languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl gained acceptance on its own...
engine in the beta stage of development) is extant. For example, one can add support for Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
and Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
scripting to Windows by installing the ActiveState
ActiveState
ActiveState is a Canadian software company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. It develops, sells, and supports cross-platform development tools for dynamic languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl, as well as language distributions and enterprise services...
Active Scripting engines which are included in the ActivePerl and ActivePython
ActivePython
ActiveState ActivePython is a CPython distribution for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX, distributed by ActiveState. Since version 2.6.3.7, ActivePython comes with PyPM that is used to install binary Python packages...
distributions. The standard PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
installation for Windows includes an engine known as ActivePHP and PHPScript in various versions. Scripting engines implementing other variants of Basic, Haskell
Haskell (programming language)
Haskell is a standardized, general-purpose purely functional programming language, with non-strict semantics and strong static typing. It is named after logician Haskell Curry. In Haskell, "a function is a first-class citizen" of the programming language. As a functional programming language, the...
, PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
, REXX (multiple versions), Delphi
Delphi
Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...
, XSLT
XSLT
XSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
, Tcl
Tcl
Tcl is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. Originally "born out of frustration", according to the author, with programmers devising their own languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl gained acceptance on its own...
, Ruby
Ruby (programming language)
Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...
and other languages are also available.
In Windows, CScript.exe at the command line and WScript.exe running in the GUI are the main means of implementation of installed Active Script languages. Clicking on an icon or running from the command line, a script, the Run dialogue, &c. will by default run a plain text file containing the code. Windows Script File
Windows Script File
A Windows Script File is a file type used by the Microsoft Windows Script Host. It allows mixing the scripting languages JScript and VBScript within a single file, or other scripting languages such as Perl, Object REXX, Python, or Kixtart if installed by the user...
s (.wsf) are an XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
file which can contain more than one script in more than one language in addition to other elements, and are executed by the Windows Script Host.
The third-party shell Take Command
Take Command (command line interpreter)
Take Command was the name that JP Software used for their GUI command line interpreters for Windows 3.1 , Windows 32-bit and later OS/2 Presentation Manager . These were released concurrently with version 4DOS 5.5, 4NT 2.5 and 4OS2 2.52...
can, as of version 10, be configured for direct interoperability with the script host and its installed engines.
The script host, related components, and engines are able to be integrated into and called from Windows applications just like any other component.
Deprecation
Active Scripting is now deprecatedDeprecation
In the process of authoring computer software, its standards or documentation, deprecation is a status applied to software features to indicate that they should be avoided, typically because they have been superseded...
in favor of .NET
.NET Framework
The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
, with some continuing use of run-time interpretation of JScript with JScript .NET
JScript .NET
JScript .NET is a .NET programming language developed by Microsoft as a natural successor to Microsoft's Active Scripting language JScript, which, in turn, started life as an implementation of JavaScript....
and VBScript within ASP.NET
ASP.NET
ASP.NET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic Web sites, Web applications and Web services. It was first released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages ...
. No new versions of the active scripting engines will be developed and they are now being supported by Microsoft's Sustaining Engineering Team, who are responsible for bug fixes and security enhancements. However version 5.6 of the scripting engines will continue to be shipped with future releases of Microsoft Windows and IIS. Microsoft has also introduced Windows PowerShell
Windows PowerShell
Windows PowerShell is Microsoft's task automation framework, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language built on top of, and integrated with the .NET Framework...
which can expose applications via PowerShell cmdlets and/or PowerShell providers.
Originally, the .NET Framework had a scripting technology of its own and a separate scripting IDE called Visual Studio for Applications (VSA), and the interfaces to the technology were also available via Active Scripting, allowing even .NET-unaware applications to be scripted using .NET languages. VSA was also meant to replace Visual Basic for Applications.
However, that entire technology was deprecated in version 2.0 of the .NET Framework, leaving no clear upgrade path for applications desiring Active Scripting support (although "scripts" can be created in C#, VBScript, Visual Basic .NET
Visual Basic .NET
Visual Basic .NET , is an object-oriented computer programming language that can be viewed as an evolution of the classic Visual Basic , which is implemented on the .NET Framework...
, and other .NET languages, which can be compiled
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
and executed at run-time via libraries installed as part of the standard .NET runtime).
External links
- Future of VBScript Language - Information about the future of Active Scripting technologies.