I want to completely understand how to use relative and absolute url address in static and dynamic files.
~ :
/ :
.. : in a relative URL indicates the parent directory
. : refers to the current directory
/ : always replaces the entire pathname of the base URL
// : always replaces everything from the hostname onwards
This example is easy when you are working without virtual directory. But i am working on virtual directory.
Relative URI Absolute URI
about.html http://WebReference.com/html/about.html
tutorial1/ http://WebReference.com/html/tutorial1/
tutorial1/2.html http://WebReference.com/html/tutorial1/2.html
/ http://WebReference.com/
//www.internet.com/ http://www.internet.com/
/experts/ http://WebReference.com/experts/
../ http://WebReference.com/
../experts/ http://WebReference.com/experts/
../../../ http://WebReference.com/
./ http://WebReference.com/html/
./about.html http://WebReference.com/html/about.html
I want to simulate a site below, like my project which is working on virtual directory.
These are my aspx and ascx folder
http://hostAddress:port/virtualDirectory/MainSite/ASPX/default.aspx
http://hostAddress:port/virtualDirectory/MainSite/ASCX/UserCtrl/login.ascx
http://hostAddress:port/virtualDirectory/AdminSite/ASPX/ASCX/default.aspx
These are my JS Files(which will be use both with the aspx and ascx files):
http://hostAddress:port/virtualDirectory/MainSite/JavascriptFolder/jsFile.js
http://hostAddress:port/virtualDirectory/AdminSite/JavascriptFolder/jsFile.js
this is my static web page address(I want to show some pictures and run inside some js functions):
http://hostAddress:port/virtualDirectory/HTMLFiles/page.html
this is my image folder
http://hostAddress:port/virtualDirectory/Images/PNG/arrow.png
http://hostAddress:port/virtualDirectory/Images/GIF/arrow.png
if i want to write and image file's link in my ASPX file i should write
aspxImgCtrl.ImageUrl = Server.MapPath("~")+"/Images/GIF/arrow.png";
But if i want to write the path hard coded or from javascript file, what kind of url address it should be?
The ~ operator is recognized by asp.net only for server controls and in server code. You cannot use the ~ operator for client elements.
Absolute and relative path references in a server control have the following disadvantages:
•Absolute paths are not portable between applications. If you move the application that the absolute path points to, the links will break.
•Relative paths in the style of client elements can be difficult to maintain if you move resources or pages to different folders.
To overcome these disadvantages, ASP.NET includes the Web application root operator (~), which you can use when specifying a path in server controls. ASP.NET resolves the ~ operator to the root of the current application. You can use the ~ operator in conjunction with folders to specify a path that is based on the current root.
As for the example you posted
aspxImgCtrl.ImageUrl = Server.MapPath("~")+"/Images/GIF/arrow.png";
the above code will render the server physical path (for example - c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mysite\images\gif\arrow.png" which is meaning less on the client side,
you should use this for correct client relative path:
aspxImgCtrl.ImageUrl = "~/Images/GIF/arrow.png";
To reference resources from javascript you may want to consider a one level folders structure to unify access paths. for example:
Pages
JS
Pix
etc...
For more details visit asp.net web site paths
Related
Existing ASP.NET (MVC and webforms hybrid) website displays translated content. The language is based on a cookie that stores the user's preference. There is no change in the URL when the user changes the setting. The content is reloaded in the preferred language. For SEO, the locale should be included in the URL ( support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en).
I've tried the following:
1) Use URL Rewrite Module: (http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/url-rewrite-module/setting-http-request-headers-and-iis-server-variables)
Issues:
- All hyperlinks and redirects still point to the old URL without the locale.
- Complex outbound rules required based on the folder structure and usage (mixture of absolute paths and relative paths e.g. ../, ~/, /).
- Also need to disable static compression as per documentation
- Performance considerations due to large size of Html.
- Postback results in runtime exceptions due to issue in the relative path rewrite.
- Paths defined in script files (ajax loading etc) are a huge challenge
- Base tag does not work as expected, because the Rewrite Module seems to append ../ (http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/url-rewrite-module/url-rewriting-for-aspnet-web-forms#Using_tilda)
2) IIS 7.5 Virtual Directory: Create Virtual Directory for each language and point it to the root. i.e. www.example.com is the root and www.example.com/fr-ca/ is a virtual directory mapped back to the root
Issues:
- Runtime exception in config file saying that the virtual directory needs to be converted to application
- Converting it to application gives 500.19 error due to duplicate entries in the web config (since the virtual directory is pointing back to the root)
- I tried moving the root to another subdirectory (i.e. have a physical directory for each language) to avoid web config conflicts, but that is resulting in some sort of "kernel" error. Also, this would mean changing the physical structure of the application, and also address routing issues
3) Using sub-domains:
I have also considered using sub-domains and hosting the application independently for each language, but this has a lot of drawbacks, including having to address scalability, single sign on, cookies, domain specific stuff like analytics etc.
So what is the least painful way to include a language sub-directory in the URL, and make all links relative to that sub-directory?
Note: The site contains a mixture of absolute paths and relative paths e.g. (../, ~/, /) sometimes used in conjunction with ResolveClientUrl, ResolveUrl
In the end, we went with option 2, with the below steps:
Create a new folder, deploy a copy of the application to the new folder. The new folder should be in a different directory from the root application.
Create a new virtual application* (not virtual directory) under the root application; 1 for each new language, pointing to the new folder. (If the need arises in the future, any of the virtual applications can point a different folder customized for that specific language)
In the new folder, remove the modules and handlers sections in the system.webServer section of the web.config file (they will be inherited from the parent web.config)
If you are using SQL session state, you will need to specify a custom Application Name in the web.config, and modify TempGetAppID stored procedure so that the Application Name is the same across all the virtual applications. See the following (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/toddca/archive/2007/01/25/sharing-asp-net-session-state-across-applications.aspx)
Hopefully, all the links are resolved on the server side using Url.Content (MVC) or ResolveUrl (webforms). If not, they need to be fixed. Any paths specified in javascript would not automatically resolve to the virtual application either (they would still be resolved to root application)
Test the heck out of it. Each and every link. (A tool like ScreamingFrog may help to make sure that no 404s are returned, methinks. But it wouldn't solve HTTP POST)
Note that depending on custom error handling, and any existing URL rewrite rules, the steps maybe different.
Summary: option 1 (URL Rewrite) is totally impractical. Option 2 (sub-directory) is the most practical solution, however it is not quite as straightforward as it should've been.
string path = context.Server.MapPath("~/Temp");
or
string path = context.Server.MapPath("/Temp");
are same ?
I know that '~' represents root but want to know diff bw ~/folder and /folder
Absolute and relative path references in a server control have the
following disadvantages:
Absolute paths are not portable between applications. If you move the
application that the absolute path points to, the links will break.
Relative paths in the style of client elements can be difficult to
maintain if you move resources or pages to different folders.
To overcome these disadvantages, ASP.NET includes the Web application
root operator (~), which you can use when specifying a path in server
controls. ASP.NET resolves the ~ operator to the root of the current
application.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178116(v=vs.100).aspx
~/ resolves to the application root.
/ resolves to the site root.
When a server resource (like a control or view) is rendered, ~/ paths are resolved to site root paths based on the structure and context of the application (since ~/ is meaningless to a web browser).
To simplify, application root (~/) is almost always the correct choice in ASP.Net applications (both web forms and MVC).
I am trying to get my head over FileHelpers library and have main critical problem. When I try to implement it in my web app, or even use online demo I end up with "FileNotFoundException". The chosen file is being looked for on my C: drive. How can I make the FileHelpers code to access relative path to my application instead of absolute one?
Regards,
Bartosz
Use the Server.MapPath() method to map a relative path (based on current directory or web-site root) to an absolute accessible path.
For example, if yourfile.txt is placed inside App_Data folder of your web-site then you can write:
Customer[] customers =
(Customer[])engine.ReadFile(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/yourfile.txt"));
The tilde character represents the root of your web-site, if you specify a relative path then it'll be resolved as relative to the directory where your ASP.NET page resides.
I've just create a new ASP.NET Web Application in VS2010, and set it up as an application in IIS7.
Not sure if this is relevant, but the code physically resides in the \myserver\projects\epeui\epe folder (the projects folder is the root of my default web site). The application hangs off the root of this machine's default web site: http://myserver/epe/. And is configured as an application in IIS.
Normally, I used URLs that are relative to the application root, so my CSS files are in /styles/, my images are in /images/ and my JavaScript files are in /scripts/.
Given that the application is configured as such in IIS, to access my logo, I would expect to use /images/mylogo.png, an application-relative URL.
However, this doesn't work for this site; instead I need to use parent paths (../images/mylogo.png) or URLs relative to the default web site (/epe/images/mylogo.png). Neither of these are very good for portability reasons.
I've also tried using the tilde to use URLs that are supposedly relative to the virtual path (i.e. the application root) = ~/images/mylogo.png
I swear I've done this a thousand times before but clearly screwing up somewhere... Any suggestions?
Can someone at least confirm that, for a standard application in IIS, /mypage.html should reference http://myserver/myapp/mypage.html and not http://myserver/mypage.html?
/mypage.html is going to map to the root http://myserver/mypage.html, this is correct behavior
The ~ on a SERVER SIDE control will map to the application root (so <asp:HyperLink NavigateUrl="~/mypage.html"...> will map to http://myserver/myapp/mypage.html
I have, in the past, especially with css and javascript files had to use <%= Request.ApplicationPath %>/myPage.html. Sometimes it's good to define that as a global variable in the global.asax.cs so you can use it all over. Request.ApplicationPath in your instance will be "/myapp"
I've struggled with this a lot too.
I have a django application.I have added image (url) in css,it isn't displaying the image.
But when I used it as a html file,it is displaying the image.Should I set any url in settings.py for this? Source [shown here][1]. [1]: http://dpaste.com/164620/
That is definitely a local path. You need either a path relative to the doc root (by default, Django doesn't serve media files, it's discouraged to let it do that outside testing environments) or an absolute URL if the file is on a different (sub-)domain (e.g. a local Apache vhost that serves the media files).
If you're using relative paths, beware that the path will be relative to the page the path is mentioned on (i.e. if you put it in a CSS file, it will be relative to the CSS file; if you put it in a template, it will be relative to whatever page is shown with that template).
If you're using absolute paths, beware that the path will be relative to the doc root of that (sub-)domain.
EDIT: NO, really. It's the path. A path in CSS or HTML will be parsed by your browser. So even if you run the thing on localhost, an absolute path (starting with /) will be parsed as relative to the document root (i.e. handed over to Django's URL resolution).
If you have the site running on http://localhost:8000, /home/logic/quote/template/hummingbirds.gif will be treated as http://localhost:8000/home/logic/quote/template/hummingbirds.gif, i.e. your browser will make a HTTP GET request to the server running at localhost:8000 for the path /home/logic/quote/template/hummingbirds.gif. If the server is Django, it will try to find a rule matching /home/logic/quote/template/hummingbirds.gif in your urls.py. You can't refer to a file in your filesystem by just passing the local path.
If you want to serve static files (e.g. images) with Django (i.e. on the same domain and port Django runs on), you need to configure it to serve these files first like so: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/static-files/
If you want to refer to a file on your filesystem (BAD practice and needs to be replaced if the thing EVER goes online), you need to use the file:// protocol explicitly. Absolute URLs (i.e. without protocol prefix and domain name) will always be treated as relative to the current protocol and domain.
is /home/logic/quote/template/hummingbirds.gif your image web path? it look like a local path.
does it show when you type http://your.host/home/logic/quote/template/hummingbirds.gif
if you set a background-color, does the color appear?
suggestion:
on firefox with firebug:
enable css warning
lokks at the parsed css file (css tab) to see if your rule is well writen
inspect the element your background should be on and verify it has the css rule applied and not overwriten