Question

I’m setting up a form in ASP classic and it will reload after submission (action self)

But this time it shows results of previous submissions, so how can I check that a POST submission has been made?

Like in PHP:

if($_POST['submit']) {
  show results...
}

Answer 1

You have several options:

Method 1 – Check the request method:

If Request.ServerVariables("REQUEST_METHOD") = "POST" Then
    'Show Results...
End If

Method 2 – add a hidden field to your form with a value then check if that value has been posted:

If Request.form("HiddenValue") = "1" Then
    'Show Results...
End If

Method 3 – Check if the request.form collection contains items:

If Request.Form.Count > 0 Then
    'Show Results...
End If

Method 4 – Post to a querystring (i.e. set action of <form> to ?post=yes)

If Request.QueryString("post") = "yes" Then
    'Show Results...
End If

Which one to pick?

My preferred option is method 4 – as it’s easily visible in the address bar as to what’s going on – if for some reason I want to avoid presenting this level of detail in the url, I tend to use option 3 as it’s easy to implement, requires no changes on the source forms & is reliable.
As for the other two methods:

• Method 1 – I tend to avoid relying on server variables if I don’t
  have 100% control over the server – no real justification for that,
  just a general habit I tend to work with.
• Method 2 – You could substitute a hidden field for another field that will always contain
  a value.