I remember back in the day when there were default properties, so in Excel you could make a form with a text box, and set it's value just by setting the object to a string - something under the covers would route this to the .Text or .Value property.

So when someone says Request("path") in code, what does that mean? I'm guessing it's a form, but I don't really know. There are a lot of collections it seems like this could be:

1. ClientCertificiates - Don't think it's this
2. Cookies - Maybe
3. Form - The page doesn't seem to have a form and no one told me about it's called from a form on a different page, but still, who knows?
4. QueryString - Don't you have to actually say Request.QueryString("path") for that, or is it only in .net?
5. ServerVariables - There are some other ones in here that aren't server variables, so I know it's not this one.

I wish I hadn't taken this page on, but a friend paid someone $1,400 to build a sit a few years ago, and changed some stuff, and now the consultant has raised his rates, so I said I'd do it for free. It's a good friend who deserves some help and not getting robbed, so I'm upset at having to deal with this, but it's for the best.

I read this, but it just doesn't help: http://www.w3schools.com/asp/asp_ref_request.asp

using request("varname") will search through all the request collections looking for a key/value pair with a key of "varname".

so request.ClientCertificate, request.Form, request.QueryString, request.Cookies & request.ServerVariables are all checked for it's existance

It is somewhat slower than explicitly declaring the collection to use, but it is a way of being able to grab all parameters in one call.

Unless you actually need to search all collections at once, it is a bit of a lazy method and could leave the code open to abuse and cracking attacks, simply because a developer using this method could well be leaving out other forms of protection.

What Hirst said. In all likelihood, it's either a form or a querystring request. It should, however, be of the syntax Request.Form ("path") or Request.QueryString ("path"). This is just lazy, insecure, and resource-hungry

Bad consultant. Bad, BAD consultant.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

I wish I hadn't taken this page on, but a friend paid someone $1,400 to build a sit a few years ago, and changed some stuff, and now the consultant has raised his rates, so I said I'd do it for free. It's a good friend who deserves some help and not getting robbed, so I'm upset at having to deal with this, but it's for the best.

I think Adam would call it Cranial-Rectal syndrome.

There's this idea that being lazy and writing as little code as possible is good because it makes things less complex and prevents any kind of error. It sounds like somebody I work with taught this consultant.

People like that hurt everybody's reputation ... you're actually doing a good thing for the whole profession undoing the muck for your friend.