Pausing in VBScript

haha.. so terribly sorry. I've been programming in Python recently, which doesn't require semicolons.

Yes, change the script to add semi-colons:

// Interpretted Java
// Note: Set 'Next Page' Extractor Pattern to 'After Each Pattern Application' to avoid loops
if (session.getVariable("PAGE") <= 91)
{
    session.pause(12000);
    session.scrapeFile("Search Results");
}
else
    session.setVariable ("PAGE", null);

Don't put quotes around the number in the call to session.pause--- it's expecting an integer, not a string.

One fundamental thing to understand about Java is that there are "primitive" data types, such as "int", "boolean", "float", and one or two others maybe. Other than that, all of the data types in Java are of the general type "Object". There are Object types that are a little redundant, such as an Object-type "Integer", which is not the same as a primitive "int".

Point being, "methods" in Java ("functions" of c/++ and other languages) need to recieve the data type that they want. If you ever have numbers that you need to turn into strings, the ".toString()" method is invaluable. For example, you can do the following on an integer value:

String aStringVariable = someIntegerVariable.toString();

Alternately, you can put an actual evaluation in parintheses and then use the same method:

String aStringVariable = (someIntVariable * 2).toString();

The secret to Java is that all "Objects" of the language (including String, Array, ArrayList, HashMap, HashTable, Integer, etc, etc, etc) have "methods" associated with them, so that when you have a variable of type "String", you can use that dot-methodname syntax to call a method from the String class.

I constantly make use of the Java API online. I google-search the object type with the word "java" in there somewhere and I always get a result for the java api covering that class, which lists all the methods you can call on a variable of that type.

</babbling>

To address your question about generating the random number, here's what you have to do, and why:

import the "Random" package that comes with Java, so that you can get a random number generator.
make an instance of the Object that comes in the Random package.
Tell it to grab you and Integer (the result will be of class-type "Integer", not primitive "int") in the range you specify

So, your final code would look like this:

// Interpretted Java
import java.util.Random;    // Gives you access to the "Random" package

// This line is following the general pattern for instantiating a new class object in Java:
// Classname [the name you want to give it] = new ConstructorName
// The classname is almost always the name of the package.
// The "new" keyword is always there. It's just a thing that Java requires. (Personally, I think it's silly :P )
// The contructor name is almost always the name of the class and the package name. Be aware that some constructors that you call right here can also take parameters. To know if you want to pass it a parameter or not, you should check Java's API on the class.
Random generator = new Random();

// Get an Integer out of there. It'll convert automatically into a primitive "int" since my variable is an "int". This conversion isn't critical to running properly, but I prefer "int" variables if I can. It's shorter to write out than "Integer pauseDuration = new Integer(generator.nextInt(8) + 4);
// Note that ".nextInt()" is a method of the "Random" class object, which takes zero or one parameter, depending on what you want it to do.
int pauseDuration = generator.nextInt(8) + 4;

if (session.getVariable("PAGE") <= 91)
{
    session.pause(pauseDuration);
    session.scrapeFile("Search Results");
}
else
    session.setVariable ("PAGE", null);