Programming Microsoft® ASP.NET 3.5

The View State of a Page

ASP.NET pages supply the ViewState property to let applications build a call context and retain values across two successive requests for the same page. The view state represents the state of the page when it was last processed on the server. The state is persisted—usually, but not necessarily, on the client side—and is restored before the page request is processed.

By default, the view state is maintained as a hidden field added to the page. As such, it travels back and forth with the page itself. Although it is sent to the client, the view state does not represent, nor does it contain, any information specifically aimed at the client. The information stored in the view state is pertinent only to the page and some of its ...