ASP.NET – Active Server Pages
ASP.NET is a server-side technology for developing web applications based on the.NET Framework.
Terminology Reminder: web application – same as dynamic website.
ASP.NET has been created in response to such technologies as CGI, PHP, etc., that allow creating dynamic webpages ASP.NET allows use of multiple languages (C#, VB, others) ASP.NET pages are compiled, not interpreted
Essentially, ASP.NET requires using: Windows, although.NET Framework has been ported to other operating systems, as well Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) server (although a small server named Cassini exists for hobbyists)
Microsoft SQL Server is also required, if one needs a webpage to interact with a database (required in any serious web development)
Technical details: web pages are text files with.aspx extension web files should be placed in the directory C:\Inetpub\wwwroot files cannot be opened locally from Explorer, only via the web server default.aspx is a default page
Structure of an ASP.NET page: directives code declaration blocks code render blocks ASP.NET server controls server side comments literal text and HTML tags.
Role of the directives: control how the page is compiled allow importing classes specify page caching in a browser assist in debugging. Directives start with Example of a directive:
Code declaration blocks help separate the application logic from HTML contents. The application logic defines variables, subroutines, functions, etc.
Example of a code declaration block: void mySub() { // Code placed here }
Code render blocks define inline code and inline expressions. Inline code render blocks execute one or more statements and are placed inside HTML code delimited by Inline expression render blocks display values of variables/methods.
Example of a code render block: Example of inline expression render block:
ASP.NET server controls are central to every ASP.NET page represent page’s dynamic elements usually must reside within a tag fall into 3 categories: ASP.NET controls, HTML controls, and web user controls.
Server side comments allow including text, which will not be processed by ASP.NET. They are included in special type of brackets:
Literal text and HTML tags provide the structure for presenting dynamic data, give a page the right format, which the browser can understand.
Sample code <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC ”-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” ” Sample Page void Page_Load() { messageLabel.Text = ”Hello World”; }
Summary All of the dynamic portions of the web pages in ASP.NET are usually contained within code render blocks or controls located inside a tag: