Microsoft's Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript), a subset of Visual Basic for Applications, is a powerful language for Internet application development, where it can serve as a scripting language for server-side Internet applications (i.e., Active Server Pages), and client-side web pages. It can also be used for system scripting (i.e., Windows Script Host scripts) and programming Outlook forms. The greater part of this book is an alphabetical VBScript language reference to all VBScript statements, keywords and objects, emphasizing the following details:

• The syntax, using standard code conventions

• A list of arguments accepted by the function or procedure, if any exist

• A description of the data returned by a function

• A discussion of how and where the keyword should be used within the scripting environment

• A section of notes and solutions to real-world gotchas, and various undocumented behaviors and aspects of the language that help the reader avoid potential problems

• A section that focuses on the differences between the language element in VBA and in VBScript

• A brief example to illustrate the use of the keyword

• Basic language information on VBScript data types, constants, variables, and arrays

• The difference between VBScript and VBA or JavaScript

• The use of the MSIE, Active Server, Outlook, and Windows Script Host object models to interface a script with the application it's controlling

• Tables listing VBScript functions and statements by category

• The version-specific features of VBScript

Supplementing this focus on VBScript language essentials is a wealth of additional information about VBScript, including: Regardless of the types of scripts you're using VBScript to create, VBScript in a Nutshell is the only book you'll need by your side--a complete and easy-to-use language reference.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 29 Ratings

NUTSHELL - 2005-12-06
Reviewer Rating:
I don't have this book, I've never read it. But the negative reviews for it are out of line. People have reviewed it claiming it isn't for the beginner or for learning VB Script. NO KIDDING!! It is called NUTSHELL for a reason. It is a reference book, NOT a learning book. Don't give bad reviews for a book because you were too stupid to realize you bought the wrong book. That's just as bad as buying a Java book and complaining that it doesn't have any Javascipt examples in it.

Good Reference Book - 2006-02-01
Reviewer Rating:
This is not the book to learn the basics of VBScript, but it's exactly what I needed; a good reference book. I got tired of trying to find syntax of commands and functions online. Now I have it at my fingertips.

Very useful VBScript reference - 2006-07-17
Reviewer Rating:
This is not intended for beginners in scripting or VBScript in particular. But for anyone with even moderate programming or scripting, this may be all you'll need to become familiar with VBScript.

Written in the spare, terse style of all Nutshell books, the book is very dense in terms of information. The major aspects of VBScript's versatility are explored (though there are no references to HTML Applications (HTAs)). The major functions are explained and there is a complete reference.

An essential volume for anyone using VBScript.

Jerry

2nd edition didn't document all the changes in 5.6 - 2007-04-25
Reviewer Rating:
I've been a big fan of the 1st edition for years and found it very helpful. I use Regular Expressions a lot in Perl and found VBScript's support for RE's a bit lacking (could not extract the submatches). I was pleasantly surprised to find that this capability was added in VBScript 5.5. I bought the 2nd edition of this book because it claimed to cover VBScript 5.6. Imagine my surprise when the SubMatches collection isn't documented at all.

Overall I'm quite disappointed in the 2nd edition.

A great book for VB Scripters - 2007-02-12
Reviewer Rating:
This text is excellent for folks working on VBs projects. It contains good examples, great information about syntax and also warnings for "gotcha's" -- it's great!

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