newbie questions on http handler

[Raymond Du]

Hi,

I have questions about http handler:
(1) Does it always ends with .ashx, the articles I read said http handler is
for developers to create something to handle different kind of files
extension, but all example I saw use .ashx.
(2) It does not inherit from Page class at all. Right? If it does not
inherit fro Page, how do I access Request, Response, Session or Application?

TIA

 

[Barry Kelly]

(1) Does it always ends with .ashx, the articles I read said http handler is
for developers to create something to handle different kind of files
extension, but all example I saw use .ashx.

You can do this:

1) register a different extension with IIS (in application properties),
and map it to the aspnet_isapi.dll (same as .ashx is)

2) add a mapping to the httpHandlers section web.config (see how .ashx
is registered in
c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\web.config)

See e.g. this page for more details:

http://www.theserverside.net/tt/articles/showarticle.tss?id=IIS_ASP

Typically it's easiest just to stick with .ashx though.

(2) It does not inherit from Page class at all. Right? If it does not
inherit fro Page, how do I access Request, Response, Session or Application?

Implementing IHttpHandler / IHttpAsyncHandler, there's a ProcessRequest
/ BeginProcessRequest method that you implement, and ASP.NET calls you.
It passes in a HttpContext argument. HttpContext has properties such as
Request, Response, etc.

-- Barry