ASP Access Level Question

[blyxx86]

Hey there everyone,
I am running a somewhat complex page (at least to me, because I just happened across IIS one day about a month ago?)...

Anyways, I am having users login to a page, it stores a few values in the session variables. One value is AccessLevel.. this is a range from 0-100, and depending on the value or whatnot, certain parts of the page are displayed or not displayed if they aren't. I'm wondering how much I am taxing the server with all these...

<%
IF session("accesslevel") > 10 Then
Response.Write("Hello admin....")
Else
Response.Write("Silly peon...")
End If
%>
 

That's a pseudo example, but you get the point. How many of these is good for a page, or should I be doing this another way? I've had to figure out most of the ASP stuff on my own, so I'm not sure of best/common practices with these topics.

Thanks guys!!!

[jhardman]

I'm wondering how much I am taxing the server with all these...

Not very much. I might worry if you were storing large pieces of data as session variables, but I once tried a chat room where all the data was stored as session and application-level variables, and it worked just fine.

Jared

[blyxx86]

So, on average let's say I have about 15 of these "IF AccessLevel" per page, is that too much? I'm not running a very large user base or logins, but as it grows I want to be as efficient as possible from the beginning, rather than having to go back later to implement improvements to the design.

[Nicodemas]

IF you could find a way to set many parameters at the same time in as few If statements as possible, that would save you some processing.

Also, if two variables are being tested, explicitly cast them, i.e. use CInt() or CLng() to ensure the data types expected are being tested against each other. Implicit casting is slower, as I understand.

[jhardman]

If you are worried specifically about how much server resources it uses when it's in high demand, you could switch to cookies, that keeps the data stored on the user's computer, but has equivalent processing time.

Jared

[blyxx86]

IF you could find a way to set many parameters at the same time in as few If statements as possible, that would save you some processing.

Also, if two variables are being tested, explicitly cast them, i.e. use CInt() or CLng() to ensure the data types expected are being tested against each other. Implicit casting is slower, as I understand.

Yes implicit is slower, I'm wondering if classic ASP has the ability to dimension variables AS decimal/integer/string, etc... I know .aspx has that ability, and I may convert over to the newer format sometime in the future, but for now, I'm still stretching my limbs.

I was worried about using CInt() and other functions like that as I was afraid it would cost more processing time.. Is that not true then?

[Nicodemas]

You will lose some, but you'll lose less opposed to allowing IIS to figure it out for you.

[blyxx86]

You will lose some, but you'll lose less opposed to allowing IIS to figure it out for you.

That answers it wonderfully, and it makes a great deal of sense as well. :)

Thank you!