This post explains about Shrinking session state in ASP.NET 4.0.

ASP.NET Provides two options for storing session state for web applications.

1. Out of process session state
2. MS SQL server session state

In both the options session-state providers stores the data out side the web application   worker process. Session state has to be serialized before it sends it to the external storage.

ASP.NET 4.0 introduces a new compression option for both out-of-process session state providers. We can set the compressionEnabled option in configuration file to true. ASP.NET will compress the session state by using the .NET Framework System.IO.Compression.GZipStream class.

We can configure the session state as follows

<sessionState
    mode="SqlServer"
    sqlConnectionString="data source=dbserver;Initial Catalog=aspnetstate"
    allowCustomSqlDatabase="true"
    compressionEnabled="true"
/>

Advantage: With this addition of attribute to web.config file there is substantial reduction in the size of serialized session-state data.

In ASP.NET 4.0 there are new features that enable developer to make SEO friendly websites very easily. And if you google out, you will find plenty of article which explain this feature. But I am more interested in Response.RedirectPermanent. As the name suggest it is used to redirect permanently moved resources to new location. And most of all articles on the net just explain this with some example. But how can we visualize that whether resource is redirected permanently or not. So here is the answer for that. I have used FireBug to examine the same.

Whenever we redirect with Response.Redirect, we can see following activity in FireBug console.



As we can see that page which issues Response.Redirect its response status code 302(Found) which means requested url(default.aspx) is found but it is temporarily moved to about.aspx. More information on HTTP status code can be found here.

Now whenever we redirect with Response.RedirectPermanent, we can see following activity in FireBug console.



As we can see that page which issues Response.RedirectPermanent its response status code 301(Moved Permanently) which means requested url(default.aspx) is moved Permanently to about.aspx. 301 status code is used by search engine crawler to update search index to new moved information.

I hope information provided here would be more helpful to distinguish between Response.Redirect and Response.RedirectPermanent.

Well, knowing internal structure of an ASP.NET event system can always be an element of fun and interests. Recently I came across to a requirement to generate a server side event on a page directly from Javascript. There are a couple of approaches available with the existing models (like ICallbackEventHandler etc) but these will put additional pressure to the page and also does not use the existing code already present. So I thought to put a script that could use all the existing code and work similar to what happens in background.

You might know when a page is processed, it generates two hidden controls. viz. EventName and EventValue. The eventName is used to send the name of the event that the client is going to generate in the server side. As you know, ASP.NET is a stateless protocol. Hence everything that is genenrated in the server side to produce your page, will be disposed once it is done. Hence you need to postback the whole page again to communicate and during this phase, the ASP.NET server side page generates the respective events on various controls which is specified on the eventName.

The eventValue on the other hand will hold additional arguments that you need to send to the server for the particular event. The ASP.NET page will generate the event automatically during the rendering of the page in the server side.

Now here, I am going to build my own event so I need to do this myself. Lets see how :

public delegate void CustomEventHandler(string message);
public event CustomEventHandler public void OnCustomEventRaised(string message)
        {
            if (this.CustomEvent != null)
                this.CustomEvent(message);
        };

Say I have to generate this event from the client side. As this event is created totally by me, I need to configure it myself, such that it generates it when passed with special attribute. I personally thought it would be easier to understand this for a newbie if I write it under Page_Load, but you are free to generate this event as your wish (following your own pattern I guess). Now lets look the code to understand

First of all, I create two hidden field in the page with runat =”server”

<asp:HiddenField ID="hidEventName" runat="server" />
  <asp:HiddenField ID="hidEventValue" runat="server" />

This will ensure that the hiddenfields will be available from server side. Now inside Page_Load, I write code to raise the event :

public void Page_Load(…)
{
   if (hidEventName.Value == "CustomEvent")
   {
      hidEventName.Value = ""; //It is essential reset it and remove viewstate data
      OnCustomEventRaised(hidEventValue.Value);
   }
}

public void OnCustomEventRaised(string message)
{
    if (this.CustomEvent != null)
        this.CustomEvent(message);
}

So eventually I am raising the eventhandler once the page is posted back from the client side. Now to raise the event from the client side, let me add a javascript :

function RaiseEvent(pEventName, pEventValue) {

        document.getElementById('<%=hidEventName.ClientID %>').value = pEventName;
        document.getElementById('<%=hidEventValue.ClientID %>').value = pEventValue;

        if (document.getElementById('<%=MyUpdatePanel.ClientID %>') != null) {
            __doPostBack('<%=MyUpdatePanel.ClientID %>', '');
        }
    }

So basically I am posting back the whole page from the client side using the __doPostBack method already present for every page. Here I have used my UpdatePanelId to ensure that postback is generated from my UpdatePanel.

Now from javascript if I call :

RaiseEvent(‘CustomEvent’, ‘Hello from server’);

It will eventually call the server with my custom message.

Recently I had to setup an ASP.NET MVC 2 project which would utilize the built-in membership of ASP.NET. However, I didn't have access to a MS SQL database, so I had to use a MySQL data provider instead. The following is a quick guide on how to get it setup.

First, you need to download the MySQL Connector/Net from this page. This makes it possible to connect to MySQL databases from .NET applications and gives you access to the ADO.NET interfaces. I choose to download the latest development release (at the time of writing) Connector/Net 6.3.3 beta, as this fully integrates with Visual Studio 2010 which the latest public release (6.2.3 at the time of writing) does not. Download BOTH the source (mysql-connector-net-6.3.3-src.zip) and the installation file (mysql-connector-net-6.3.3.zip). I will explain why in a second.

Once you've downloaded both files, extract them and install the connector. Now, normally when using the membership provider, the database tables/schemas are automatically created. The MySQL membership provider does this as well, unfortunately it just doesn't do it right. At least it didn't work for me. Instead, you have to create the databases semi-manually. Go to the location where you extracted the source and browse to the following folder "\MySql.Web\Providers\Properties". In this folder you will see a number of .sql files: schema1.sql, schema2.sql, schema3.sql, schema4.sql, schema5.sql and schema6.sql. Run each of these, in turn and starting with schema1.sql, against your MySQL database.

Now, fire up Visual Studio 2010 and open your application. Add a reference to MySql.Web.dll which can be found in the directory you installed the Connector, e.g. C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Connector Net 6.3.3\Assemblies\v2.0

Next, unless you haven’t done this already, add your MySQL connection string to the configuration/connectionStrings element in the Web.config, e.g.:

<connectionStrings> 
    <add name="MySQLConn" connectionString="Server=SERVERADDRESS;Database=DATABASENAME;Uid=USERNAME;Pwd=PASSWORD;"/> 
</connectionStrings> 

Finally, open up your Web.config and add these lines to the <system.web> element:

<membership defaultProvider="MySqlMembershipProvider"> 
  <providers> 
    <clear/> 
    <add name="MySqlMembershipProvider"                   
    type="MySql.Web.Security.MySQLMembershipProvider,MySql.Web,Version=6.3.3.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d"   
    autogenerateschema="true" connectionStringName="MySQLConn"   
    enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="true"   
    requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false" requiresUniqueEmail="false"   
    passwordFormat="Hashed" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5"   
    minRequiredPasswordLength="6" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0"   
    passwordAttemptWindow="10" passwordStrengthRegularExpression=""   
    applicationName="/" /> 
  </providers> 
</membership> 

<profile defaultProvider="MySqlProfileProvider"> 
  <providers> 
    <clear/> 
    <add name="MySqlProfileProvider"   
    type="MySql.Web.Profile.MySQLProfileProvider,MySql.Web,Version=6.3.3.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d"   
    connectionStringName="MySQLConn" applicationName="/" /> 
  </providers> 
</profile> 

<roleManager enabled="true" defaultProvider="MySqlRoleProvider"> 
  <providers> 
    <clear /> 
    <add name="MySqlRoleProvider"   
    type="MySql.Web.Security.MySQLRoleProvider,MySql.Web,Version=6.3.3.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d"   
    connectionStringName="MySQLConn" applicationName="/" /> 
  </providers> 
</roleManager> 

Now, you've (hopefully) got a fully working MySQL membership provider. To test it, go to Project > ASP.NET Configuration and go to the Security tab. Here you should be able to manage users and roles.

NOTE: Make sure you enter the correct connectionstring name, version number and PublicKeyToken in the Web.config.

When you start creating a new ASP.NET 2.0 site with Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Web Developer Express (VWD) and want to start using it you'll notice that a new file in the App_Data folder gets created besides your own database, namely the aspnetdb.mdf file. This extra database holds all the tables and stored procedures to let Membership, Roles, Profile etc run smoothly.

However a problem arises when you don't want to use that dedicated new database when you want to deploy to your live webserver, certainly not when you use a host that only offers one database and charges you extra for another database. Luckely you can control things more when using the dedicated aspnet_regsql tool that ships with the .NET 2.0 framework.

What I'm about to describe in this article is how to use that tool to generate a SQL script that you can use to run on your other database with a tool like SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). In this example I'll be using the installed Northwind database on my localhost developer machine.

Just start up a new DOS box by going to Start | Run and type in cmd followed by enter. In Windows Vista you push the blue windows logo button and in the field with the text Start Search you type in cmd followed by ctrl + shift + enter. The reason for that combination is that you must run it under Admin privileges or else the to be generated file doesn't get writed to disk.
A new DOS box will appear and you just navigate to the following directory/folder:

Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\

If you're not used to using DOS you can navigate to it by typing this in the DOS box: cd \windows\Microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727 followed by enter.

Then you type in this line: aspnet_regsql.exe -E -S localhost -d Northwind -A all -sqlexportonly c:\membership.sql again followed by enter. At the location c:\ a new file gets generated: membership.sql.



The Northwind name in the parameter list is later on used to set the db name in the generated sql file: SET @dbname = N'Northwind'

Once generated you can use/tweak this file to be used in SSMS to get executed and to install everything needed in the database.

Ok, up untill now we focussed on getting everything ready on the database side but we also have to let our ASP.NET 2.0 application know that we're pointing out to another database than the default one. The solution for this is to override the default settings for the LocalSqlServer connectionstring which can be found in the machine.config file.

<add name="LocalSqlServer"
connectionString="data source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Integrated Security=SSPI;
AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|aspnetdb.mdf;User Instance=true"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

To override that you open the web.config file in your application which can be normally found in the root of the application. Go to the <connectionStrings> element.

<connectionStrings>
    <remove name="LocalSqlServer"/>
    <add name="LocalSqlServer" connectionString="The connection string to your
                         (new) database" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

Notice the second line where you call the remove statement. This is needed in order to be able to override the LocalSqlServer connection string!

If you're in need of a little help to get your connection string right there's a dedicated site: http://www.connectionstrings.com/.

If you're interested in creating one dedicated database for multiple applications you can also check out Scott Guthrie's post: Configuring ASP.NET 2.0 Application Services to use SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005.