ASP.NET 4 Unleashed

Creating HTTP Handlers

An HTTP Handler is a .NET class that executes whenever you make a request for a file at a certain path. Each type of resource that you can request from an ASP.NET application has a corresponding handler. For example, when you request an ASP.NET page, the Page class executes. The Page class is actually an HTTP Handler because it implements the IHttpHandler interface.

Other examples of HTTP Handlers are the TraceHandler class, which displays application-level trace information when you request the Trace.axd page, and the ForbiddenHandler class, which displays an Access Forbidden message when you attempt to request source code files from the browser.

You can implement your own HTTP handlers. For example, imagine that you ...