How to create singleton Page in asp.net - asp.net

We can use a class implement IHttpHandlerFactory to override or intercept the create progress of Page's instance
In a word we can use:
PageHandlerFactory factory = (PageHandlerFactory)Activator.CreateInstance(typeof(PageHandlerFactory), true);
IHttpHandler handler = factory.GetHandler(context, requestType, url, pathTranslated);
return handler;
to create new instance of asp.net page object.
But you know, the page is not in persistence
If you save the object in applicationstate or session, when next request, you can get the page,but you will find the Application(HttpApplication) in "Page.Context" is null.
In that, the page visit will fail and it cannot be a singleton one.
How to set the httpApplication?

I don't understand all of your question, but I guess you are looking for HttpContext.Current.Application
Use that instead of Page.Context.Application.

I think that you need to call the internal protected FrameworkInitialize() function after the page has been constructed.

Related

The Application_PreRequestHandlerExecute event doesn't fire for PageMethods. What can I use instead?

This article explains that the PreRequestHandlerExecute event does not fire for PageMethod calls for whatever reason. However, I'm trying to use that event to populate the Principal object with the user's permissions so they can be checked within any web request (PageMethod call or not). I'm caching the permissions in the Session, so I need an event that fires whenever a PageMethod is called, and I need to have access to the Session. This way I can populate the Principal object with the security permissions cached in the session, and User.IsInRole() calls will work as expected. What event can I use?
You should implement an authorization module that will be run with every request that goes up to the server. This way you are able to authorize your principal for any request that come up to the server (page request, method, etc.)
public class AuthorizationModule : IHttpModule, IRequiresSessionState
{
//not going to implement it fully, might not compile
public void Init( HttpApplication context )
{
//you'll prolly want to hook up to the acquire request state event, but read up to make sure this is the one you want on the msdn
context.AcquireRequestState += AuthorizeRequest;
}
public void AuthorizeRequest( HttpContextBase httpContext )
{
// do you work in here
// you can redirect them wherever if they don't have permssion, log them out, etc
}
}
}
After you've crated the module, you'll need to hook it up in the web.config. Your type should include the namespace if it has one.
<httpModules>
<add name="AuthorizationModule" type="AuthorizationModule"/>
</httpModules>
I hope this helps.
You can use the Application_OnPostAuthenticateRequest as shown below (assuming you are using Forms Authentication. Else, pls replace the code with your Authentication mechanism):
public void Application_OnPostAuthenticateRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
IPrincipal usr = HttpContext.Current.User;
if (usr.Identity.IsAuthenticated && usr.Identity.AuthenticationType == "Forms")
{
var fIdent = (FormsIdentity)usr.Identity;
var ci = new CustomIdentity(fIdent.Ticket);
var p = new CustomPrincipal(ci);
HttpContext.Current.User = p;
Thread.CurrentPrincipal = p;
}
}
Page Methods are static, and bypass the normal Page lifecycle, its objects and its events. The best you can do is pass authentication information as parameters to the Page Method itself.
From my point of view, you can:
1.- Use a common method you can call from every page method server code that have access to Session variables. Please refer to:
http://mattberseth.com/blog/2007/06/aspnet_ajax_use_pagemethods_pr.html
2.- Try to capture a similar behaviour later using __doPostBack() function to run server code. See if this work for you to capture page method async posbacks:
http://www.dotnetcurry.com/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=256
Hope that helps,

Abstracting HttpContext Request and Session - thread safety

I have the following assemblies in my ASP.NET app:
Website - this is an ASP.NET website
ClassLib - this is just a class lib that contains all the business logic
Class Lib needs to interact with the HttpContext Session and Request objects. This is a code upgrade from an old ASP app, where I've hoovered all the VBScript that contained the logic and put it into VB.NET. We simply didn't have time to rewrite.
Instead of ClassLib interacting directly with HttpContext, which I thought was BAD and also prevented us from unit testing, I introduced the following abstraction layer:
Public Class Request
Private Shared _requestWrapper as IRequestWrapper
Public Shared ReadOnly Property RequestWrapper()
Get
If _requestWrapper Is Nothing Then
Throw New Exception("_requestWrapper is null. Make sure InitRequest() is called with valid parameters")
End If
Return _requestWrapper
End Get
End Property
Public Shared Sub InitRequest(ByRef requestWrapper As IRequestWrapper)
_requestWrapper = requestWrapper
End Sub
Public Shared Function GetVal(ByVal key As String) As Object
Return RequestWrapper.GetVal(key)
End Function
etc.
This means in the unit tests I can supply my own MockRequest object into this Request class, which is just a simple NameValue collection. The code in the ClassLib and the Website then simply use the Request class and are none the wiser that it isn't coming from the HttpContext, but rather this mock class.
When it comes to the real deal, I simply have the following (C#) class:
public class RealRequest : IRequestWrapper
{
public void Initialize(HttpContext context)
{
}
#region Implementation of IRequestWrapper
public object GetVal(string index)
{
return HttpContext.Current.Request[index];
}
etc.
This is initialised in Session_Start of global.asax in the Website, as follows:
protected void Session_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
IRequestWrapper requestWrapper = new RealRequest();
WebSession.Request.InitRequest(ref requestWrapper);
}
I think this is similar to the Static Gateway pattern.
Now, I am aware of singletons and static vars in a multi threaded environment such as ASP.NET, but this is slightly different. When it gets down to the RequestWrapper.GetVal(), its actually going to the HttpContext for that running thread - and pulling the value from that.
Certainly, any concurrent tests that we do with multiple users hitting the same server have never shown up any strange behaviour.
I'm just looking for re-assurance that this is a sound design, and if not why not?
Thanks
Duncan
This is fine. We have a very similar case in our applications that either uses HttpContext if it exists or fake implementations otherwise.
The one thing to watch out for is that there is a very specific instance where HttpContext.Current will return a value but HttpContext.Current.Request will throw an exception when triggered by the Application_Start event. In framework code, you really don't know (or want to know) what triggered the call though.
Workaround for HttpContext.HideRequestResponse being internal? Detect if HttpContext.Request is really available?

How to make sure that CreateChildControls() method is called when unit testing custom ASP.NET web controls?

I want to unit test my rendering engine for an ASP.NET app. I have some custom controls created in that app. Most of those control rely on having CreateChildControls() method called by the ASP.Net engine wheather during initial call or a postback.
When running a test CreateChildControls() does not get called and the control is in an "invalid" state.
As a workaround to get the tests going I explicitly call some other public method that calls EnsureChildControls() in it. This in effect causes CreateChildControls() to be executed and the control being initialized properly (just as it would normally when hosted on web server).
I would like to get rid of that extra method call and the control to still be in a proper state for testing.
Are there any elegant solutions to this problem?
You could alternatively use reflection to call CreateChildControls directly, thereby escaping the need to use the public method to invoke it. That would be easy enough:
var methodInfo = control.GetType().GetMethod("CreateChildControls", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
methodInfo.Invoke(control, new object[] { });
You could embed this code somewhere so that you only need to do this once and reuse it.
EDIT: You could have your test inherit from your control too, so you can invoke some of these methods directly. But you have to instantiate your control by instantiating the test and not the control, as in:
public class CtlTest : Ctl
{
[Test]
public void A()
{
var ctl = new CtlTest();
ctl.RecreateChildControls(); //protected, but can be accessed because of inheritance
}
}
HTH.

Access/use the same object during a request - asp.net

i have a HttpModule that creates an CommunityPrincipal (implements IPrincipal interface) object on every request. I want to somehow store the object for every request soo i can get it whenever i need it without having to do a cast or create it again.
Basically i want to mimic the way the FormsAuthenticationModule works.
It assigns the HttpContext.User property an object which implements the IPrincipal interface, on every request.
I somehow want to be able to call etc. HttpContext.MySpecialUser (or MySpecialContext.MySpecialUser - could create static class) which will return my object (the specific type).
I could use a extension method but i dont know how to store the object so it can be accessed during the request.
How can this be achieved ?
Please notice i want to store it as the specific type (CommunityPrincipal - not just as an object).
It should of course only be available for the current request being processed and not shared with all other threads/requests.
Right now i assign my CommunityPrincipal object to the HttpContext.User in the HttpModule, but it requires me to do a cast everytime i need to use properties on the CommunityPrincipal object which isnt defined in the IPrincipal interface.
I'd recommend you stay away from coupling your data to the thread itself. You have no control over how asp.net uses threads now or in the future.
The data is very much tied to the request context so it should be defined, live, and die along with the context. That is just the right place to put it, and instantiating the object in an HttpModule is also appropriate.
The cast really shouldn't be much of a problem, but if you want to get away from that I'd highly recommend an extension method for HttpContext for this... this is exactly the kind of situation that extension methods are designed to handle.
Here is how I'd implement it:
Create a static class to put the extension method:
public static class ContextExtensions
{
public static CommunityPrinciple GetCommunityPrinciple(this HttpContext context)
{
if(HttpContext.Current.Items["CommunityPrinciple"] != null)
{
return HttpContext.Current.Items["CommunityPrinciple"] as CommunityPrinciple;
}
}
}
In your HttpModule just put the principal into the context items collection like:
HttpContext.Current.Items.Add("CommunityPrincipal", MyCommunityPrincipal);
This keeps the regular context's user property in the natural state so that 3rd party code, framework code, and anything else you write isn't at risk from you having tampered with the normal IPrincipal stroed there. The instance exists only during the user's request for which it is valid. And best of all, the method is available to code as if it were just any regular HttpContext member.... and no cast needed.
Assigning your custom principal to Context.User is correct. Hopefully you're doing it in Application_AuthenticateRequest.
Coming to your question, do you only access the user object from ASPX pages? If so you could implement a custom base page that contains the cast for you.
public class CommunityBasePage : Page
{
new CommunityPrincipal User
{
get { return base.User as CommunityPrincipal; }
}
}
Then make your pages inherit from CommunityBasePage and you'll be able to get to all your properties from this.User.
Since you already storing the object in the HttpContext.User property all you really need to acheive you goal is a Static method that acheives your goal:-
public static class MySpecialContext
{
public static CommunityPrinciple Community
{
get
{
return (CommunityPrinciple)HttpContext.Current.User;
}
}
}
Now you can get the CommunityPrinciple as:-
var x = MySpecialContext.Community;
However it seems a lot of effort to got to avoid:-
var x = (CommunityPrinciple)Context.User;
An alternative would be an Extension method on HttpContext:-
public static class HttpContextExtensions
{
public static CommunityPrinciple GetCommunity(this HttpContext o)
{
return (CommunityPrinciple)o.User;
}
}
The use it:-
var x = Context.GetCommunity();
That's quite tidy but will require you to remember to include the namespace where the extensions class is defined in the using list in each file the needs it.
Edit:
Lets assume for the moment that you have some really good reason why even a cast performed inside called code as above is still unacceptable (BTW, I'd be really interested to understand what circumstance leads you to this conclusion).
Yet another alternative is a ThreadStatic field:-
public class MyModule : IHttpModule
{
[ThreadStatic]
private static CommunityPrinciple _threadCommunity;
public static CommunityPrinciple Community
{
get
{
return _threadCommunity;
}
}
// Place here your original module code but instead of (or as well as) assigning
// the Context.User store in _threadCommunity.
// Also at the appropriate point in the request lifecyle null the _threadCommunity
}
A field decorated with [ThreadStatic] will have one instance of storage per thread. Hence multiple threads can modify and read _threadCommunity but each will operate on their specific instance of the field.

Retrieving Values from URL Rerouting on the target page?

Ok... got URL Routing working just fine, but cannot figure out how to actually read the values in the target page.
One example here shows using the RouteValue object from the RequestContext. Now all of these are in the System.Web.Routing namespace, but everyone seems to be connecting these to MVC only. Where does the RequestContext come from?
How do I read these parameters???
Querystring is blank as well.
TIA!
Kevin
Solved this one on my own... Yay me!!! :)
Started mucking around with things and saw the IHttpHandler interface provides the RequestContext to the GetHttpHandler method.
So, I modified my base page class (I always put a layer between System.Web.UI.Page and my own pages, calling it BasePage or similar just for the purpose). So I added a public property on PVBasePage to receive a RequestContext object.
public RequestContext RequestContext { get; set; }
Then, my Routing class code is as follows:
IHttpHandler IRouteHandler.GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)
{
// create the page object as my own page...
var page = BuildManager.CreateInstanceFromVirtualPath(VirtualPath
, typeof(PVBasePage)) as PVBasePage;
// pass in the request context
page.RequestContext = requestContext;
// return this page in the form of a IHttpHandler
return page as IHttpHandler;
}
So instead of, as in the sample code, creating the instance directly as the IHttpHandler, I create it as my own page. Set the request context property, and then return the page to the caller AS a IHttpHandler.
Tested and it works. WOO HOO!
Hope this helps someone else down the road.

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