Pro ASP NET 2.0 Website Programming

673 Pages·2005·12.88 MB·English

by  Damon Armstrong

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Pro ASP.NET 2.0
Website Programming
■ ■ ■
Damon Armstrong
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Pro ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming
Copyright © 2005 by Damon Armstrong
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
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ISBN (pbk): 1-59059-546-7
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Lead Editor: Tony Davis
Technical Reviewer: Damien Foggon
Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Dan Appleman, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Tony Davis, Jason
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Contents at a Glance
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii
About the Technical Reviewer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
■ CHAPTER 1 Configuration Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
■ CHAPTER 2 Exception Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
■ CHAPTER 3 Master Pages, Themes, and Control Skins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
■ CHAPTER 4 Developing Reusable Components: The Skinned
Page-Message Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
■ CHAPTER 5 User Management Tools and Login Controls for
Forms Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
■ CHAPTER 6 Managing Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
■ CHAPTER 7 Building Portals Using the Web Parts Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
■ CHAPTER 8 Effective Search Tools and Techniques for Your
Business Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
■ CHAPTER 9 Building a Reusable Reporting Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
■ CHAPTER 10 Web-Based Wizards: Avoiding Duplicate Data Entry . . . . . . . . . . 437
■ CHAPTER 11 Uploading Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
■ CHAPTER 12 Security and Encryption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
■ CHAPTER 13 Using HTTP Handlers: Request Processing,
Image Generation, and Content Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
■ INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
v
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Contents
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii
About the Technical Reviewer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
■ CHAPTER 1 Configuration Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
New Configuration Tools in ASP.NET 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Web Site Administration Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
ASP.NET Property Page in IIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Configuration Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Application Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Connection Strings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Configuration Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Strongly Typed Configuration Classes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The Strongly Typed Configuration Sample Application . . . . . . . . . . 13
Adding the Web.config File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Config Class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Using the Config Class in Your Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Error Handling in the Config Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Caching Application Settings and Connection Strings . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Custom Configuration Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Configuration Section Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Storing Configuration Settings in a Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
When to Avoid the Web.config File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Creating a Database Table to Store Configuration Settings. . . . . . . 34
Avoiding SQL Injection Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Creating the DataConfig Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Reading Configuration Values from the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Writing Configuration Values to the Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Properties of the DataConfig Class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Serializing and Deserializing Objects in the Database. . . . . . . . . . . 41
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
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■ CONTENTS vii
■ CHAPTER 2 Exception Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Exception Management Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
What Are Exceptions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Handling Exceptions with the Try Catch Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Using Multiple Catch Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Catching Specific Errors Using the When Clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Using the Finally Keyword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Throwing Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Creating Custom Exception Classes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Inner Exceptions and Exception Wrapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Error Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Global Error Handling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
IIS versus ASP.NET Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Defining a Default Error Page for ASP.NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Using an ASPX Page as the Default Error Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Defining Custom Error Pages in ASP.NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Defining Custom Error Pages in IIS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Using the Application Error Event. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Logging Exceptions for Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Choosing an Exception Logging Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Architecture Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Creating the ExceptionLog Table to Store Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
ExceptionLog Class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
ExceptionLogCollection Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
ExceptionLogger Class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Using the ExceptionLogger Class in Your Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Reviewing Exceptions Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
■ CHAPTER 3 Master Pages, Themes, and Control Skins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Master Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Creating a Master Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Creating Content Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Accessing Master Pages from Content Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Defining a Default Master Page for Your Application . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Changing Master Pages in Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Nested Master Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Themes and Control Skins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Creating a Theme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
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viii ■ CONTENTS
Adding a Cascading Style Sheet to Your Theme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Creating Control Skins for Your Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Disabling Control Skins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Creating Named Control Skins for Your Theme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Applying Themes to Specific Pages or the Entire Application. . . . 108
Programming with Themes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
■ CHAPTER 4 Developing Reusable Components: The Skinned
Page-Message Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
New Control Features in ASP.NET 2.0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Design-Time Rendering of User Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Global Tag Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Developing Server Controls with the ControlState. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Building the ControlState Example Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Creating the ControlState Demo Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Viewing the ControlState Behavior in the Demo Page . . . . . . . . . . 120
Building a Skinned Page-Message Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
What Is a Skinned Control?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
How Does the Server Control Manipulate the UserControl? . . . . . 122
How Are Skinned Controls Implemented?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Architecture of the Skinned Page-Message Server Control. . . . . . 125
Storage Locations for UserControl Skins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Setting Up the Messaging Web Control Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
The Skinned Web Control Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
The MessageDataCollection Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Defining a Standard Tag Prefix for Your Control Library . . . . . . . . 140
Design Time Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Referencing the PageMessageControl in Your Web Project . . . . . 141
Creating the PageMessageControl’s Skin Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Using the PageMessageControl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
■ CHAPTER 5 User Management Tools and Login Controls for Forms
Authentication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Forms Authentication in ASP.NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Authentication Modes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Configuring an Authentication Mode for Your Application. . . . . . . 155
Authentication Tickets in Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
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■ CONTENTS ix
Authentication Cookies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Specifying a Default Login Page and Login Redirection URL. . . . . 156
Other Forms Authentication Configuration Options . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Manually Implementing Forms Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Working with the Membership and Roles Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
The Membership Object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
The Roles Object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Programming with the Membership and Role Objects. . . . . . . . . . 173
Configuring the Membership and Role Providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Managing Users and Security with the Web Site Administration Tool. . 178
Opening the Web Site Administration Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Home Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
The Provider Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
The Security Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Adding, Editing, and Deleting Users. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
ASP.NET 2.0 Login Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Templated Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Creating Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
The Login Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
The LoginView Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
The Password Recovery Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
The LoginStatus Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
The LoginName Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
The CreateUserWizard Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
The ChangePassword Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
■ CHAPTER 6 Managing Profiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Profile Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
The Profile Object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Enabling and Disabling Profiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Defining Profile Properties in Web.config . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Creating Profile Property Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Implementing a Profile Property Class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Strongly Typed Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
ProfileManager Class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Working with Anonymous Profiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Enabling Anonymous Profile Identification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
When to Use Anonymous Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Drawbacks of Anonymous Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226