Macromedia dreamweaver 8-using dreamweaver Benutzerhandbuch

Connecting to a database on an ISP

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Understanding physical and virtual paths

After using Dreamweaver to upload your files to a remote server, the files reside in a folder in 
the server’s local directory tree. For example, on a server running Microsoft IIS, the path to 
your home page could be as follows:

c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\accounts\users\jsmith\index.htm

This path is known as the physical path to your file. 

The URL to open your file, however, does not use the physical path. It uses the name of the 
server or domain followed by a virtual path, as in the following example:

www.plutoserve.com/jsmith/index.htm

The virtual path, /jsmith/index.htm, stands in for the physical path, 
c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\accounts\users\jsmith\index.htm. 

Related topics

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Finding a file’s physical path with the virtual path

If you work with an ISP, you don’t always know the physical path to the files you upload. ISPs 
typically provide you with an FTP host, possibly a host directory, and a login name and 
password. ISPs also specify a URL to view your pages on the Internet, such as 
www.plutoserve.com/jsmith/.

If you know the URL, then you can get the file’s virtual path—it’s the path that follows the 
server or domain name in a URL. Once you know the virtual path, you can get the file’s 
physical path on the server using the 

MapPath

 method.

Among other things, the 

MapPath

 method takes the virtual path as an argument and returns 

the file’s physical path and filename. Here’s the method’s syntax:

Server.MapPath("/virtualpath")

Suppose a file’s virtual path is /jsmith/index.htm, then the following expression will return its 
physical path:

Server.MapPath("/jsmith/index.htm")

You can experiment with the 

MapPath

 method as follows. 

1.

Open an ASP page in Dreamweaver and switch to Code view (View > Code).

2.

Enter the following expression in the page’s HTML code.

<%Response.Write(stringvariable)%>