ASP Code Reviews

As well as assisting with the creation of technical documentation, the ASP Documentation Tool can assist with code reviews of ASP source code. The two most common ASP scripting languages are supported: VBScript and JScript. There is also some support for client-side JavaScript code.

Finding Duplicated Code

The ASP Documentation Tool can assist with finding duplicated code. In ASP web applications, duplicated code is typically:

• The sample or very similar include file is found two or more times in the same web application.
• The same class, function or subroutine is repeated several times throughout the application.

Duplicated code has a number of problems:

• It can be difficult to identify which parts of the application call the particular instance of the duplicated code.
• Having to modify code that exists in several different parts of the application is very inefficient.
• It may slow application performance.

The ASP Documentation Tool creates comprehensive searchable documentation for an ASP web application, which makes it possible to quickly locate duplicated filenames, functions, subroutines and classes [view sample reports].

Finding Unused Code

Like duplicated code, unused code can create problems with a web application. Typically these portions of unused code:

• Make it more difficult for the software developer to work efficiently on the application.
• Slow application performance.

The ASP Documentation Tool has an option to create an "Extras Report" to identify coding issues in an ASP web application. One of these options is to show unused functions (VBScript and JScript) and subroutines (VBScript) [view sample reports].

Finding Underused Code

The ASP Documentation Tool has an option to create an "Extras Report" to identify coding issues in an ASP web application. One of these options is to show underused functions (VBScript and JScript) and subroutines (VBScript) [view sample reports].

Underused functions may be close to being obsolete so they may be candidates for removal from an application.

Underused functions could also be candidates for removal from site-side include files, which will increase handling of the file as well as have a small performance increase.

Sample Reports

The ASP Documentation Tool creates three types of report about an ASP web application:

1. The standard HTML report can be viewed in any web browser that supports frames [sample].
2. The Microsoft HTML Help format is the format used by most Windows applications for their help files [sample].
3. The plain text report can be viewed in any text editor or word processing application [sample].