An Overview of ASP.NET Request Handling

To understand how HttpModules and HttpHandlers fit into the scheme of things, you have to understand the way that ASP.NET handles a request. When a request is received by Internet Information Server (IIS), it looks at the extension to determine which ISAPI filter should handle the request. For any of the supported file extensions, such as .aspx or .asmx, the answer is aspnet_isapi.dll. When ASP.NET fires up, it performs almost the same process again. It looks at the request and compares it to the <httpHandlers> section of the .config file. By default, machine.config maps .aspx files to the PageHandlerFactory and .asmx files to the WebServiceHandlerFactory. This mapping determines the HttpHandler (class) ...

Get C#® Developer's Guide to ASP.NET, XML, and ADO.NET now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.