Retrieving Values from URL Rerouting on the target page? - asp.net

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.

Related

Alternative to Server.Transfer in ASP.NET Core

I am migrating an ASP.NET application to ASP.NET Core and they have some calls to HttpServerUtility.Transfer(string path). However, HttpServerUtility does not exist in ASP.NET Core.
Is there an alternative that I can use? Or is Response.Redirect the only option I have?
I want to maintain the same behaviour as the old application as much as possible since there is a difference in between Server.Transfer and Response.Redirect.
I see some options for you, depending on your case:
Returning another View: So just the HTML. See answer of Muqeet Khan
Returning another method of the same controller: This allows also the execution of the business logic of the other action. Just write something like return MyOtherAction("foo", "bar").
Returning an action of another controller: See the answer of Ron C. I am a bit in troubles with this solution since it omits the whole middleware which contains like 90% of the logic of ASP.NET Core (like security, cookies, compression, ...).
Routing style middleware: Adding a middleware similar to what routing does. In this case your decision logic needs to be evaluated there.
Late re-running of the middleware stack: You essentially need to re-run a big part of the stack. I believe it is possible, but have not seen a solution yet. I have seen a presentation of Damian Edwards (PM for ASP.NET Core) where he hosted ASP.NET Core without Kestrel/TCPIP usage just for rendering HTML locally in a browser. That you could do. But that is a lot of overload.
A word of advice: Transfer is dead ;). Differences like that is the reason for ASP.NET Core existence and performance improvements. That is bad for migration but good for the overall platform.
You are correct. Server.Transfer and Server.Redirect are quite different. Server.Transfer executes a new page and returns it's results to the browser but does not inform the browser that it returned a different page. So in such a case the browser url will show the original url requested but the contents will come from some other page. This is quite different than doing a Server.Redirect which will instruct the browser to request the new page. In such a case the url displayed in the browser will change to show the new url.
To do the equivalent of a Server.Transfer in Asp.Net Core, you need to update the Request.Path and Request.QueryString properties to point to the url you want to transfer to and you need to instantiate the controller that handles that url and call it's action method. I have provided full code below to illustrate this.
page1.html
<html>
<body>
<h1>Page 1</h1>
</body>
</html>
page2.html
<html>
<body>
<h1>Page 2</h1>
</body>
</html>
ExampleTransferController.cs
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Diagnostics;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
namespace App.Web.Controllers {
public class ExampleTransferController: Controller {
public ExampleTransferController() {
}
[Route("/example-transfer/page1")]
public IActionResult Page1() {
bool condition = true;
if(condition) {
//Store the original url in the HttpContext items
//so that it's available to the app.
string originalUrl = $"{HttpContext.Request.Scheme}://{HttpContext.Request.Host}{HttpContext.Request.Path}{HttpContext.Request.QueryString}";
HttpContext.Items.Add("OriginalUrl", originalUrl);
//Modify the request to indicate the url we want to transfer to
string newPath = "/example-transfer/page2";
string newQueryString = "";
HttpContext.Request.Path = newPath;
HttpContext.Request.QueryString = new QueryString(newQueryString);
//Now call the action method for that new url
//Note that instantiating the controller for the new action method
//isn't necessary if the action method is on the same controller as
//the action method for the original request but
//I do it here just for illustration since often the action method you
//may want to call will be on a different controller.
var controller = new ExampleTransferController();
controller.ControllerContext = new ControllerContext(this.ControllerContext);
return controller.Page2();
}
return View();
}
[Route("/example-transfer/page2")]
public IActionResult Page2() {
string originalUrl = HttpContext.Items["OriginalUrl"] as string;
bool requestWasTransfered = (originalUrl != null);
return View();
}
}
}
Placing the original url in HttpContext.Items["OriginalUrl"] isn't strictly necessary but doing so makes it easy for the end page to know if it's responding to a transfer and if so what the original url was.
I can see this is a fairly old thread. I don't know when URL Rewriting was added to .Net Core but the answer is to rewrite the URL in the middleware, it's not a redirect, does not return to the server, does not change the url in the browser address bar, but does change the route.
resources:
https://weblog.west-wind.com/posts/2020/Mar/13/Back-to-Basics-Rewriting-a-URL-in-ASPNET-Core
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/url-rewriting?view=aspnetcore-5.0
I believe you are looking for a "named view" return in MVC. Like so,
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index(string Name)
{
ViewBag.Message = "Some message";
//Like Server.Transfer() in Asp.Net WebForm
return View("MyIndex");
}
The above will return that particular view. If you have a condition that governs the view details you can do that too.
I know that this is a very old question, but if someone uses Razor Pages and is looking to a Server.Transfer alternative (or a way to return a different view depending on a business rule), you can use partial views.
In this example, my viewmodel has a property called "UseAlternateView":
public class TestModel : PageModel
{
public bool UseAlternateView { get; set; }
public void OnGet()
{
// Here goes code that can set UseAlternateView=true in certain conditions
}
}
In my Razor View, I renderize a diferent partial view depending of the value of the UseAlternateView property:
#model MyProject.Pages.TestModel
#if (Model.UseAlternateView)
{
await Html.RenderPartialAsync("_View1", Model);
}
else
{
await Html.RenderPartialAsync("_View2", Model);
}
The partial views (files "_View1.cshtml" and "_View2.cshtml"), contain code like this:
#model MyProject.Pages.TestModel
<div>
Here goes page content, including forms with binding to Model properties
when necessary
</div>
Obs.: when using partial views like this, you cannot use #Region, so you may need to look for an anternative for inserting scripts and styles in the correct place on the master page.

How do QueryString parameters get bound to Action method parameters?

I have a webforms project, and am attempting to run some code that allows me to make a call to an MVC route and then render the result within the body of the web forms page.
There are a couple of HttpResponse/Request/Context wrappers which I use to execute a call to an MVC route, e.g.:
private static string RenderInternal(string path)
{
var responseWriter = new StringWriter();
var mvcResponse = new MvcPlayerHttpResponseWrapper(responseWriter, PageRenderer.CurrentPageId);
var mvcRequest = new MvcPlayerHttpRequestWrapper(Request, path);
var mvcContext = new MvcPlayerHttpContextWrapper(Context, mvcResponse, mvcRequest);
lock (HttpContext.Current)
{
new MvcHttpHandlerWrapper().PublicProcessRequest(mvcContext);
}
...
The code works fine for executing simple MVC routes, for e.g. "/Home/Index". But I can't specify any query string parameters (e.g. "/Home/Index?foo=bar") as they simply get ignored. I have tried to set the QueryString directly within the RequestWrapper instance, like so:
public class MvcPlayerHttpRequestWrapper : HttpRequestWrapper
{
private readonly string _path;
private readonly NameValueCollection query = new NameValueCollection();
public MvcPlayerHttpRequestWrapper(HttpRequest httpRequest, string path)
: base(httpRequest)
{
var parts = path.Split('?');
if (parts.Length > 1)
{
query = ExtractQueryString(parts[1]);
}
_path = parts[0];
}
public override string Path
{
get
{
return _path;
}
}
public override NameValueCollection QueryString
{
get
{
return query;
}
}
...
When debugging I can see the correct values are in the "request.QueryString", but the values never get bound to the method parameter.
Does anyone know how QueryString values are used and bound from an http request to an MVC controller action?
It seems like the handling of the QueryString value is more complex than I anticipated. I have a limited knowledge of the internals of the MVC Request pipeline.
I have been trying to research the internals myself and will continue to do so. If I find anything I will update this post appropriately.
I have also created a very simple web forms project containing only the code needed to produce this problem and have shared it via dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vi6erzw24813zq1/StackMvcGetQuestion.zip
The project simply contains one Default.aspx page, a Controller, and the MvcWrapper class used to render out the result of an MVC path. If you look at the Default.aspx.cs you will see a route path containing a querystring parameter is passed in, but it never binds against the parameter on the action.
As a quick reference, here are some extracts from that web project.
The controller:
public class HomeController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Index(string foo)
{
return Content(string.Format("<p>foo = {0}</p>", foo));
}
}
The Default.aspx page:
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string path = "/Home/Index?foo=baz";
divMvcOutput.InnerHtml = MvcWrapper.MvcPlayerFunctions.Render(path);
}
I have been struggling with this for quite a while now, so would appreciate any advice in any form. :)
MVC framework will try to fill the values of the parameters of the action method from the query string (and other available data such as posted form fields, etc.), that part you got right. The part you missed is that it does so by matching the name of the parameter with the value names passed in. So if you have a method MyMethod in Controller MyController with the signature:
public ActionResult MyMethod(string Path)
{
//Some code goes here
}
The query string (or one of the other sources of variables) must contain a variable named "Path" for the framework to be able to detect it. The query string should be /MyController/MyMethod?Path=Baz
Ok. This was a long debugging session :) and this will be a long response, so bear with me :)
First how MVC works. When you call an action method with input parameters, the framework will call a class called "DefaultModelBinder" that will try and provide a value for each basic type (int, long, etc.) and instance of complex types (objects). This model binder will depend on something called the ValueProvider collection to look for variable names in query string, submitted forms, etc. One of the ValueProviders that interests us the most is the QueryStringValueProvider. As you can guess, it gets the variables defined in the query string. Deep inside the framework, this class calls HttpContext.Current to retrieve the values of the query string instead of relying on the ones being passed to it. In your setup this is causing it to see the original request with localhost:xxxx/Default.aspx as the underlying request causing it to see an empty query string. In fact inside the Action method (Bar in your case) you can get the value this.QueryString["variable"] and it will have the right value.
I modified the Player.cs file to use a web client to make a call to an MVC application running in a separate copy of VS and it worked perfectly. So I suggest you run your mvc application separately and call into it and it should work fine.

Intercept Unity 2.0 HandlerAttribute without an interface

I'm a first-time user of the AOP features of Unity 2.0 and would like some advice. My goal is to be able to log method calls in an ASPX page, like so:
public partial class Page2 : Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
}
[Log]
private void Testing()
{
}
}
Here is the code for the LogAttribute:
public class LogAttribute : HandlerAttribute
{
public override ICallHandler CreateHandler(IUnityContainer container)
{
return new LogHandler(Order);
}
}
Now the LogHandler:
public class LogHandler : ICallHandler
{
public LogHandler(int order)
{
Order = order;
}
public IMethodReturn Invoke(IMethodInvocation input, GetNextHandlerDelegate getNext)
{
string className = input.MethodBase.DeclaringType.Name;
string methodName = input.MethodBase.Name;
string preMethodMessage = string.Format("{0}.{1}", className, methodName);
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(preMethodMessage);
return getNext()(input, getNext);
}
public int Order { get; set; }
}
The problem I have is how to use the [Log] attribute. I've seen plenty of example of how to configure the interception settings, for example:
container.AddNewExtension<Interception>();
container.Configure<Interception>().SetDefaultInterceptorFor<ILogger>(new InterfaceInterceptor());
But this implies that I have an interface to intercept, which I don't. I have the ASPX page which uses the [Log] attribute.
so how can I configure Unity to make use of the [Log] attribute? I've done this before using PostSharp and would like to be able to use Unity to do the same.
Cheers.
Jas.
You're unfortunately not going to get this to work in an ASP.NET page with Unity interception.
Unity interception uses a runtime interception model. Depending on the interceptor you choose, you'll either get a subclass with virtual method overrides to call the call handlers (VirtualMethodInterceptor) or a separate proxy object (Interface or TransparentProxyInterceptor) which execute the call handlers and then forward to the real object.
Here's the issue - ASP.NET controls creation and calls to your page, and there's no easy way to hook into them. Without controlling the creation of the page object, you can't use the VirtualMethodInterceptor, because that requires that you instantiate a subclass. And you can't use the proxy version either, because you need ASP.NET to make calls through the proxy.
PostSharp gets around this because it's actually rewriting your IL at compile time.
Assuming you could hook into the creation of the page object, you'd have to use the VirtualMethodInterceptor here. It's a private method, so you want logging on "self" calls (calls from one method of the object into another method on the same object). The proxy-based interceptors can't see those, since the proxy is a separate instance.
I expect there is a hook somewhere to customize how ASP.NET creates object - BuildManager maybe? But I don't know enough about the details, and I expect it'll require some pretty serious hacking to get work.
So, how do you get around this? My recommendation (actually, I'd recommend this anyway) is to use the Model-View-Presenter pattern for your ASP.NET pages. Make the page object itself dumb. All it does is forward calls to a separate object, the Presenter. The Presenter is where your real logic is, and is independent of the details of ASP.NET. You get a huge gain in testability, and you can intercept calls on the presenter without all the difficulty that ASP.NET gives you.

How to create singleton Page in 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.

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.

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