UNIT 1

ASP.NET

ASP.NET is a web development platform, which provides a programming

model, a comprehensive software infrastructure and various services
required to build up robust web applications for PC, as well as mobile devices.

ASP.NET works on top of the HTTP protocol, and uses the HTTP commands
and policies to set a browser-to-server bilateral communication and
cooperation.

ASP.NET is a part of Microsoft .Net platform. ASP.NET applications are

compiled codes, written using the extensible and reusable components or
objects present in .Net framework. These codes can use the entire hierarchy of
classes in .Net framework.

The ASP.NET application codes can be written in any of the following

languages:

 C#
 Visual Basic.Net
 Jscript
 J#

ASP.NET is used to produce interactive, data-driven web applications over the

internet. It consists of a large number of controls such as text boxes, buttons,
and labels for assembling, configuring, and manipulating code to create HTML
pages.

ASP.NET Web Forms Model

ASP.NET web forms extend the event-driven model of interaction to the web
applications. The browser submits a web form to the web server and the
server returns a full markup page or HTML page in response.

All client side user activities are forwarded to the server for stateful
processing. The server processes the output of the client actions and triggers
the reactions.
Now, HTTP is a stateless protocol. ASP.NET framework helps in storing the
information regarding the state of the application, which consists of:

 Page state
 Session state

The page state is the state of the client, i.e., the content of various input fields
in the web form. The session state is the collective information obtained from
various pages the user visited and worked with, i.e., the overall session state.
To clear the concept, let us take an example of a shopping cart.

User adds items to a shopping cart. Items are selected from a page, say the
items page, and the total collected items and price are shown on a different
page, say the cart page. Only HTTP cannot keep track of all the information
coming from various pages. ASP.NET session state and server side
infrastructure keeps track of the information collected globally over a session.

The ASP.NET runtime carries the page state to and from the server across
page requests while generating ASP.NET runtime codes, and incorporates the
state of the server side components in hidden fields.

This way, the server becomes aware of the overall application state and
operates in a two-tiered connected way.

The ASP.NET Component Model

The ASP.NET component model provides various building blocks of ASP.NET
pages. Basically it is an object model, which describes:

 Server side counterparts of almost all HTML elements or tags, such as

<form> and <input>.
 Server controls, which help in developing complex user-interface. For
example, the Calendar control or the Grid view control.

ASP.NET is a technology, which works on the .Net framework that contains all
web-related functionalities. The .Net framework is made of an object-oriented
hierarchy. An ASP.NET web application is made of pages. When a user
requests an ASP.NET page, the IIS delegates the processing of the page to the
ASP.NET runtime system.
The ASP.NET runtime transforms the .aspx page into an instance of a class,
which inherits from the base class page of the .Net framework. Therefore, each
ASP.NET page is an object and all its components i.e., the server-side controls
are also objects.

Components of .Net Framework

Before going to the next session on Visual Studio.Net, let us go through at the
various components of the .Net framework . The following table describes the
components of the .Net framework and the job they perform:

Components and their Description

(1) Common Language Runtime or CLR

It performs memory management, exception handling, debugging, security checking,

thread execution, code execution, code safety, verification, and compilation. The code
that is directly managed by the CLR is called the managed code. When the managed
code is compiled, the compiler converts the source code into a CPU independent
intermediate language (IL) code. A Just In Time (JIT) compiler compiles the IL code
into native code, which is CPU specific.

(2) .Net Framework Class Library

It contains a huge library of reusable types. classes, interfaces, structures, and
enumerated values, which are collectively called types.

(3) Common Language Specification

It contains the specifications for the .Net supported languages and implementation of
language integration.

(4) Common Type System

It provides guidelines for declaring, using, and managing types at runtime, and cross-
language communication.

(5) Metadata and Assemblies

Metadata is the binary information describing the program, which is either stored in
a portable executable file (PE) or in the memory. Assembly is a logical unit consisting
of the assembly manifest, type metadata, IL code, and a set of resources like image
files.

(6) Windows Forms

Windows Forms contain the graphical representation of any window displayed in the
application.

(7) ASP.NET and ASP.NET AJAX

ASP.NET is the web development model and AJAX is an extension of ASP.NET for
developing and implementing AJAX functionality. ASP.NET AJAX contains the
components that allow the developer to update data on a website without a complete
reload of the page.

(8) ADO.NET
It is the technology used for working with data and databases. It provides access to
data sources like SQL server, OLE DB, XML etc. The ADO.NET allows connection to
data sources for retrieving, manipulating, and updating data.

(9) Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)

It helps in building workflow-based applications in Windows. It contains activities,
workflow runtime, workflow designer, and a rules engine.

(10) Windows Presentation Foundation

It provides a separation between the user interface and the business logic. It helps in
developing visually stunning interfaces using documents, media, two and three
dimensional graphics, animations, and more.

(11) Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

It is the technology used for building and executing connected systems.

(12) Windows CardSpace

It provides safety for accessing resources and sharing personal information on the
internet.

(13) LINQ
It imparts data querying capabilities to .Net languages using a syntax which is similar
to the tradition query language SQL.
 ASP.NET - Environment Setup

ASP.NET provides an abstraction layer on top of HTTP on which the web

applications are built. It provides high-level entities such as classes and
components within an object-oriented paradigm.

The key development tool for building ASP.NET applications and front ends is
Visual Studio. In this tutorial, we work with Visual Studio 2008.

Visual Studio is an integrated development environment for writing,

compiling, and debugging the code. It provides a complete set of development
tools for building ASP.NET web applications, web services, desktop
applications, and mobile applications.

Installation.
Microsoft provides a free version of visual studio which also contains SQL
Server and it can be downloaded from www..visualstudio..com.
Step 1 − Once downloading is complete, run the installer. The following dialog
will be displayed.
Step 2 − Click on the Install button and it will start the installation process.
Step 3 − Once the installation process is completed successfully, you will see
the following dialog. Close this dialog and restart your computer if required.

Step 4 − Open Visual Studio from start Menu which will open the following
dialog. It will be a while for the first time for preparation.

Step 5 − Once all is done you will see the main window of Visual studio.
Let’s create a new project from File → New → Project

The Visual Studio IDE

The new project window allows choosing an application template from the
available templates.

When you start a new web site, ASP.NET provides the starting folders and files
for the site, including two files for the first web form of the site.

The file named Default.aspx contains the HTML and asp code that defines the
form, and the file named Default.aspx.cs (for C# coding) or the file named
Default.aspx.vb (for VB coding) contains the code in the language you have
chosen and this code is responsible for the actions performed on a form.

The primary window in the Visual Studio IDE is the Web Forms Designer
window. Other supporting windows are the Toolbox, the Solution Explorer,
and the Properties window. You use the designer to design a web form, to add
code to the control on the form so that the form works according to your need,
you use the code editor.

Working with Views and Windows

You can work with windows in the following ways:

 To change the Web Forms Designer from one view to another, click on
the Design or source button.
 To close a window, click on the close button on the upper right corner
and to redisplay, select it from the View menu.
 To hide a window, click on its Auto Hide button. The window then
changes into a tab. To display again, click the Auto Hide button again.
 To change the size of a window, just drag it.

Adding Folders and Files to your Website

When a new web form is created, Visual Studio automatically generates the
starting HTML for the form and displays it in Source view of the web forms
designer. The Solution Explorer is used to add any other files, folders or any
existing item on the web site.

 To add a standard folder, right-click on the project or folder under

which you are going to add the folder in the Solution Explorer and
choose New Folder.
 To add an ASP.NET folder, right-click on the project in the Solution
Explorer and select the folder from the list.
 To add an existing item to the site, right-click on the project or folder
under which you are going to add the item in the Solution Explorer and
select from the dialog box.
Projects and Solutions
A typical ASP.NET application consists of many items: the web content files
(.aspx), source files (.cs files), assemblies (.dll and .exe files), data source files
(.mdb files), references, icons, user controls and miscellaneous other files and
folders. All these files that make up the website are contained in a Solution.

When a new website is created. VB2008 automatically creates the solution

and displays it in the solution explorer.

Solutions may contain one or more projects. A project contains content files,
source files, and other files like data sources and image files. Generally, the
contents of a project are compiled into an assembly as an executable file (.exe)
or a dynamic link library (.dll) file.

Typically a project contains the following content files:

 Page file (.aspx)

 User control (.ascx)
 Web service (.asmx)
 Master page (.master)
 Site map (.sitemap)
 Website configuration file (.config)

Building and Running a Project

You can execute an application by:

 Selecting Start
 Selecting Start Without Debugging from the Debug menu,
 pressing F5
 Ctrl-F5

The program is built meaning, the .exe or the .dll files are generated by
selecting a command from the Build menu.

ASP.Net life cycle

  ASP.NET processes pages to produce dynamic output
 The application and its pages are instantiated and processed
 ASP.NET compiles the pages dynamically

The ASP.NET life cycle could be divided into two groups:

 Application Life Cycle

 Page Life Cycle

1. Application Life Cycle

The application life cycle has the following stages:

 User makes a request for accessing application resource, a page.

Browser sends this request to the web server.
 A unified pipeline receives the first request and the following events
take place:
o An object of the class ApplicationManager is created.
o An object of the class HostingEnvironment is created to provide
information regarding the resources.
o Top level items in the application are compiled.
 Response objects are created. The application objects such as
HttpContext, HttpRequest and HttpResponse are created and initialized.
 An instance of the HttpApplication object is created and assigned to the
request.
 The request is processed by the HttpApplication class. Different events
are raised by this class for processing the request.

2 .Page Life Cycle

When a page is requested, it is loaded into the server memory, processed, and
sent to the browser. Then it is unloaded from the memory. At each of these
steps, methods and events are available, which could be overridden according
to the need of the application. In other words, you can write your own code to
override the default code.

The Page class creates a hierarchical tree of all the controls on the page. All
the components on the page, except the directives, are part of this control tree.
You can see the control tree by adding trace= "true" to the page directive. We
will cover page directives and tracing under 'directives' and 'event handling'.

The page life cycle phases are:

 Initialization
 Instantiation of the controls on the page
 Restoration and maintenance of the state
 Execution of the event handler codes
 Page rendering

Understanding the page cycle helps in writing codes for making some specific
thing happen at any stage of the page life cycle. It also helps in writing custom
controls and initializing them at right time, populate their properties with
view-state data and run control behavior code.

Different stages of an ASP.NET page:

 Page request - When ASP.NET gets a page request, it decides whether to
parse and compile the page, or there would be a cached version of the
page; accordingly the response is sent.

 Starting of page life cycle - At this stage, the Request and Response
objects are set. If the request is an old request or post back, the
IsPostBack property of the page is set to true. The UICulture property of
the page is also set.

 Page initialization - At this stage, the controls on the page are assigned
unique ID by setting the Unique ID property and the themes are applied.
For a new request, postback data is loaded and the control properties
are restored to the view-state values.
 Page load - At this stage, control properties are set using the view state
and control state values.

 Validation - Validate method of the validation control is called and on its

successful execution, the IsValid property of the page is set to true.
 Postback event handling - If the request is a postback (old request), the
related event handler is invoked.
  Page rendering - At this stage, view state for the page and all controls
are saved. The page calls the Render method for each control and the
output of rendering is written to the OutputStream class of the
Response property of page.

 Unload - The rendered page is sent to the client and page properties,
such as Response and Request, are unloaded and all cleanup done.

ASP.NET Page Life Cycle Events

At each stage of the page life cycle, the page raises some events, which could
be coded. An event handler is basically a function or subroutine, bound to the
event, using declarative attributes such as Onclick or handle.

Following are the page life cycle events:

 PreInit - PreInit is the first event in page life cycle. It checks the
IsPostBack property and determines whether the page is a postback. It
sets the themes and master pages, creates dynamic controls, and gets
and sets profile property values. This event can be handled by
overloading the OnPreInit method or creating a Page_PreInit handler.

 Init - Init event initializes the control property and the control tree is
built. This event can be handled by overloading the OnInit method or
creating a Page_Init handler.

 InitComplete - InitComplete event allows tracking of view state. All the

controls turn on view-state tracking.

 LoadViewState - LoadViewState event allows loading view state

information into the controls.

 LoadPostData - During this phase, the contents of all the input fields are
defined with the <form> tag are processed.

 PreLoad - PreLoad occurs before the post back data is loaded in the
controls. This event can be handled by overloading the OnPreLoad
method or creating a Page_PreLoad handler.
  Load - The Load event is raised for the page first and then recursively
for all child controls. The controls in the control tree are created. This
event can be handled by overloading the OnLoad method or creating a
Page_Load handler.

 LoadComplete - The loading process is completed, control event

handlers are run, and page validation takes place. This event can be
handled by overloading the OnLoadComplete method or creating a
Page_LoadComplete handler

 PreRender - The PreRender event occurs just before the output is

rendered. By handling this event, pages and controls can perform any
updates before the output is rendered.

 PreRenderComplete - As the PreRender event is recursively fired for all

child controls, this event ensures the completion of the pre-rendering
phase.

 SaveStateComplete - State of control on the page is saved.

Personalization, control state and view state information is saved. The
HTML markup is generated. This stage can be handled by overriding the
Render method or creating a Page_Render handler.

 UnLoad - The UnLoad phase is the last phase of the page life cycle. It
raises the UnLoad event for all controls recursively and lastly for the
page itself. Final cleanup is done and all resources and references, such
as database connections, are freed. This event can be handled by
modifying the OnUnLoad method or creating a Page_UnLoad handler.

ASP.Net Architecture

The architecture of the.Net framework is based on the following key

components

ASP.Net is a development language used for constructing web-based

applications. ASP.Net is designed to work with the standard HTTP protocol.
1. Language – A variety of languages exists for .net framework. They are VB.net
and C#. These can be used to develop web applications.
2. Library – The .NET Framework includes a set of standard class libraries. The
most common library used for web applications in .net is the Web library. The
web library has all the necessary components used to develop.Net web-based
applications.
3. Common Language Runtime – The Common Language Infrastructure or CLI
is a platform. .Net programs are executed on this platform. The CLR is used for
performing key activities. Activities include Exception handling and Garbage
collection.

key characteristics of the ASP.Net framework

1. Code Behind Mode – This is the concept of separation of design and code.
By making this separation, it becomes easier to maintain the ASP.Net
application. The general file type of an ASP.Net file is aspx. Assume we
have a web page called MyPage.aspx. There will be another file called
 MyPage.aspx.cs which would denote the code part of the page. So Visual
Studio creates separate files for each web page, one for the design part and
the other for the code.

2. State Management – ASP.Net has the facility to control state management.

HTTP is known as a stateless protocol. Let’s take an example of a shopping
cart application. Now, when a user decides what he wants to buy from the
site, he will press the submit button.The application needs to remember the
items the user choose for the purchase. This is known as remembering the
state of an application at a current point in time. HTTP is a stateless
protocol. When the user goes to the purchase page, HTTP will not store the
information on the cart items. Additional coding needs to be done to ensure
that the cart items can be carried forward to the purchase page. Such an
implementation can become complex at times. But ASP.Net can do state
management on your behalf. So ASP.Net can remember the cart items and
pass it over to the purchase page.

3. Caching – ASP.Net can implement the concept of Caching. This improve’s

the performance of the application. By caching those pages which are often
requested by the user can be stored in a temporary location. These pages can
be retrieved faster and better responses can be sent to the user. So caching
can significantly improve the performance of an application.

ASP.NET Server controls

An ASP.NET page is made up of a number of server controls along with HTML
controls, text, and images. Sensitive data from the page and the states of different
controls on the page are stored in hidden fields that form the context of that page
request.

ASP.NET runtime controls the association between a page instance and its state.
An ASP.NET page is an object of the Page or inherited from it.

All the controls on the pages are also objects of the related control class inherited
from a parent Control class. When a page is run, an instance of the object page is
created along with all its content controls.
An ASP.NET page is also a server side file saved with the .aspx extension. It is
modular in nature and can be divided into the following core sections:

 Page Directives
 Code Section
 Page Layout

Page Directives

The page directives set up the environment for the page to run. The @Page
directive defines page-specific attributes used by ASP.NET page parser and
compiler. Page directives specify how the page should be processed, and which
assumptions need to be taken about the page.

It allows importing namespaces, loading assemblies, and registering new controls

with custom tag names and namespace prefixes.

Code Section

The code section provides the handlers for the page and control events along with
other functions required. We mentioned that, ASP.NET follows an object model.
Now, these objects raise events when some events take place on the user interface,
like a user clicks a button or moves the cursor. The kind of response these events
need to reciprocate is coded in the event handler functions. The event handlers are
nothing but functions bound to the controls.

The code section or the code behind file provides all these event handler routines,
and other functions used by the developer. The page code could be precompiled
and deployed in the form of a binary assembly.

ASP.NET - Event Handling

An event is an action or occurrence such as a mouse click, a key press, mouse

movements, or any system-generated notification. A process communicates
through events. For example, interrupts are system-generated events. When
events occur, the application should be able to respond to it and manage it.
Events in ASP.NET raised at the client machine, and handled at the server
machine. For example, a user clicks a button displayed in the browser. A Click
event is raised. The browser handles this client-side event by posting it to the
server.

The server has a subroutine describing what to do when the event is raised; it
is called the event-handler. Therefore, when the event message is transmitted
to the server, it checks whether the Click event has an associated event
handler. If it has, the event handler is executed.

Event Arguments
ASP.NET event handlers generally take two parameters and return void. The
first parameter represents the object raising the event and the second
parameter is event argument.

The general syntax of an event is:

private void EventName (object sender, EventArgs e);

Application and Session Events

The most important application events are:

 Application_Start - It is raised when the application/website is started.

 Application_End - It is raised when the application/website is stopped.

Similarly, the most used Session events are:

 Session_Start - It is raised when a user first requests a page from the

application.
 Session_End - It is raised when the session ends.

Page and Control Events

Common page and control events are:

 Databinding - It is raised when a control binds to a data source.

 Disposed - It is raised when the page or the control is released.
 Error - It is a page event, occurs when an unhandled exception is thrown.
  Init - It is raised when the page or the control is initialized.
 Load - It is raised when the page or a control is loaded.
 PreRender - It is raised when the page or the control is to be rendered.
 Unload - It is raised when the page or control is unloaded from memory.

Event Handling Using Controls

All ASP.NET controls are implemented as classes, and they have events which are
fired when a user performs a certain action on them. For example, when a user
clicks a button the 'Click' event is generated. For handling events, there are in-built
attributes and event handlers. Event handler is coded to respond to an event, and
take appropriate action on it.

By default, Visual Studio creates an event handler by including a Handles clause

on the Sub procedure. This clause names the control and event that the procedure
handles.

The ASP tag for a button control:

<asp:Button ID="btnCancel" runat="server" Text="Cancel" />

The event handler for the Click event:

Protected Sub btnCancel_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As

System.EventArgs)

Handles btnCancel.Click
End Sub

An event can also be coded without Handles clause. Then, the handler must be
named according to the appropriate event attribute of the control.

The ASP tag for a button control:

<asp:Button ID="btnCancel" runat="server" Text="Cancel"

Onclick="btnCancel_Click" />

The event handler for the Click event:

Protected Sub btnCancel_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArgs)

End Sub

The common control events are:

Event Attribute Controls

Button, image button, link button,

Click OnClick
image map

Command OnCommand Button, image button, link button

TextChanged OnTextChanged Text box

Drop-down list, list box, radio

SelectedIndexChanged OnSelectedIndexChanged
button list, check box list.

CheckedChanged OnCheckedChanged Check box, radio button

Some events cause the form to be posted back to the server immediately, these are
called the postback events. For example, the click event such as, Button.Click.

Some events are not posted back to the server immediately, these are called non-
postback events.

For example, the change events or selection events such as TextBox.TextChanged

or CheckBox.CheckedChanged. The nonpostback events could be made to post
back immediately by setting their AutoPostBack property to true.

Default Events

The default event for the Page object is Load event. Similarly, every control has a
default event. For example, default event for the button control is the Click event.
The default event handler could be created in Visual Studio, just by double
clicking the control in design view. The following table shows some of the default
events for common controls:

Control Default Event

AdRotator AdCreated

BulletedList Click

Button Click

Calender SelectionChanged

CheckBox CheckedChanged

CheckBoxList SelectedIndexChanged

DataGrid SelectedIndexChanged

DataList SelectedIndexChanged

DropDownList SelectedIndexChanged

HyperLink Click

ImageButton Click

ImageMap Click

LinkButton Click
ListBox SelectedIndexChanged

Menu MenuItemClick

RadioButton CheckedChanged

RadioButtonList SelectedIndexChanged

Example.

This example includes a simple page with a label control and a button control on it.
As the page events such as Page Load, Page_Init, Page_PreRender etc. take place,
it sends a message, which is displayed by the label control. When the button is
clicked, the Button_Click event is raised and that also sends a message to be
displayed on the label.

Create a new website and drag a label control and a button control on it from the
control tool box. Using the properties window, set the IDs of the controls
as .lblmessage and .btnclick. respectively. Set the Text property of the Button
control as 'Click'.

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