109203 – Applications of ICT

Lecture 17

Engr. Mahnoor Iftikhar

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Scripting?
• Scripting is a way to instruct a computer software, in how to control a
computer hardware or a machine.
• Computer software are made through programming, and software
can be controlled using scripting.
• Just like programming languages, scripting languages do have a valid
syntax and they need a compiler.

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Where are scripts used?
• Scripting maybe used in:
Controlling Robots (eg: LEGO kits)
Controlling 3D design software(Maya,3d Studio)
Controlling operating systems (Windows Batch scripting)
Controlling websites (Javascript, VBSript)

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Web Scripting
• Web scripting refers to writing code or scripts that run on web pages
to create dynamic and interactive user experiences.
• These scripts are typically used to control the behavior of web
elements, handle user inputs, and interact with web servers or
databases.
• Web scripting languages add to the dynamics of websites.
• They are used to add interactivity to web applications.
• You come across web scripts daily while browsing the internet, for-
example the chatrooms, Discussion forums, Email services, etc are all
web scripts

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Types of web-scripts
• There are two kinds of web-scripts:
i. Client side scripts
ii. Server side scripts

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Client side scripts
• Client side scripts run on the user/client’s machine, they may or may
not interact with a server, and are ideal for quick response.
• This type of script runs on the user's browser (client-side) rather than
the web server. It is used to create interactive user interfaces and
handle user input.
• Used for pre-submission form checking like checking if the user has
entered a valid email address or phone number etc.
• Example: Javascript, VBScript, etc

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Client side scripts
Use Cases:
• Form validation
• Animations
• Dynamic content updates (without reloading the page)
• User interface behavior enhancements (dropdown menus, modal
windows, etc.)

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Server side scripts
• Server-side scripts run on the web server and process requests from the client
(browser). They are responsible for generating dynamic web content that is sent
to the client.
• Server side scripts run on-line on the server.
• All data must be uploaded to the server in-order for server side scripts to manage
it.
• The Server resources are utilized in the process and the execution is independent
of the client’s machine.
• Server side scripts are useful for storing user accounts, sessions, and other secure
data.
• Examples: PhP, ASP, [Link], etc.
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Introduction to Javascript
• Developed by Brendan Eich of Netscape under the name ‘Mocha’, later renamed
to ‘Livescript’.
• With the advent of ‘Java’, netscape renamed Livescript to Javascript as a
marketing strategy, creating an artificial similarity between Java and Javascript.
• Javascript is just a spin-off of java, they’ve got nothing in common other than the
fact that both try to follow the C++ syntax.

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Introduction to Javascript (2)
• Javascript was originally a client-side scripting language.
• It suffered a hibernation period when webmasters started using server side
scripting.
• With the advent of AJAX, javascript returned to the spotlight, as AJAX is a server-
side port of javascript.
• Javascript’s compiler is embedded in almost all modern web-browsers so we
don’t need any external software to run javascript applications.

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Introduction to javascript (3)
• We may use javascript in our websites by including the code in the
<script> tag.
• The scripting language is specified using the “language” attribute.
• Example:
<script language=“javascript”>
….all the scripting….
</script>

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 A basic “Hello World” application

• Write down the following code in the body of an

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“Hello world” Output

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 A javascript input script

Let us consider another script:

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A javascript input script : Output

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A javascript input script : Explanation

• Notice that this script takes some input from the user.
• ‘Window’ is a JavaScript object.
• Objects have member functions or methods, prompt is a method which takes
some inputs called arguments.
• The default value in the table is specified by the second argument to the prompt
function(150 in this case).

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 The windows alert function

• Used to display a message to the user, about an

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window alert: Output

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Javascript Variables
• A variable is a piece of computer memory for temporarily holding
some data.
• The data can be a name, a telephone number, a temperature, etc.
• In almost all programming languages, variables must reserve a
memory space before data can be written to them, this process is
called declaring a variable.

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Javascript Variables
• In javascript, we declare a variable using the ‘var’ keyword.
• We assign a value to it using the assignment operator ‘=‘.
• The variable must have a name (also called ‘identifier’).
• Example: var variable_name=“Some value to the variable”;
var age = 20;

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Javascript Variables(3)
• We can assign value to the variable in the code, or we can take the
value from the user.
• As already discussed, we use the prompt function to take a value
from the user, and store it in a variable for later reuse.

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Javascript Variables: Example
• Consider the following code:
<script language=“javascript”>
var var1=[Link](“Enter your name:”);
[Link](var1);
</script>

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Variable Example: Output

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Variable Example 2
• Let us make a simple adder script, which takes two numbers from the
user and displays their sum.
• All the data stored in a variable is a string by default, we need to
convert it to our required data-type before we can do any operations.
• Here we need it to be an integer number so we use the ‘parseInt’
function which converts a string to an integer.

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Number Adder: Code

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Number Adder: output

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HTML in Javascript

• We can use the Write method to display HTML in

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HTML in Javascript Output

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