| Acknowledgments | xi |
| Introduction | xiii |
| 1 Introduction to ASP.NET Development | 1 |
| The Problem: Developing Dynamic Web Applications | 2 |
| One Solution: Common Gateway Interface | 3 |
| The Good News About CGI | 5 |
| The Bad News About CGI | 6 |
| Another Solution: Internet Server Application Programming Interface | 7 |
| The Good News About ISAPI | 10 |
| The Bad News About ISAPI | 10 |
| A Better Solution: Active Server Pages | 11 |
| The Good News About ASP | 16 |
| The Bad News About ASP | 16 |
| A New Solution: ASP.NET | 19 |
| Conclusion | 20 |
| 2 Managed Code and the Common Language Runtime | 21 |
| Overview of the .NET Framework | 22 |
| Introduction to Microsoft Intermediate Language | 24 |
| Getting the JITters—Just in Time! | 30 |
| Managed Code and Data | 31 |
| About Unsafe Code | 33 |
| Conclusion | 33 |
| 3 The .NET Framework Objects and Languages | 35 |
| The .NET Solution to Type Compatibility | 37 |
| Value Types | 38 |
| Reference Types | 40 |
| Built-In Reference Types | 41 |
| Other Objects in the .NET Framework | 45 |
| Overview of Visual Basic .NET | 47 |
| Out with the Old! | 47 |
| In with the New! | 50 |
| C# (C Sharp) Overview | 57 |
| Differences Between C++ and C# | 58 |
| Things You Can Do in C# but Not in Visual Basic .NET | 60 |
| Conclusion | 64 |
| 4 ASP.NET Development 101 | 65 |
| Hello ASP.NET World! | 65 |
| A C# Example | 66 |
| A Visual Basic .NET Example | 69 |
| The ASP.NET Development Model | 71 |
| Creating an ASP.NET Web Application with Visual Studio .NET | 72 |
| Visual Studio .NET Interactions with Internet Information Services (IIS) | 75 |
| Your First Visual Studio .NET Web Page | 76 |
| Other Types of ASP.NET Applications | 81 |
| XML Web Services | 81 |
| HTTP Handlers and HTTP Modules | 84 |
| Configuring an Application | 85 |
| Where Does the Web.config File Go? | 87 |
| The authentication Section | 88 |
| The authorization Section | 95 |
| The customErrors Section | 95 |
| The httpHandlers Section | 97 |
| The httpModules Section | 98 |
| The identity Section | 99 |
| The pages Section | 100 |
| The processModel Section | 101 |
| The sessionState Section | 104 |
| The trace Section | 105 |
| Conclusion | 108 |
| 5 Web Forms | 109 |
| Using the Classic ASP Program Architecture | 110 |
| An Example of ASP.NET Form Validation | 114 |
| ASP.NET Server Controls vs. HTML Server Controls | 117 |
| Using Validator Controls | 118 |
| The RequiredFieldValidator Control | 119 |
| The CompareValidator Control | 124 |
| Other Validators | 129 |
| Multiple Validators on a Single Field | 138 |
| The ValidationSummary Control | 143 |
| Maintaining the State of Controls in ASP.NET | 148 |
| Manipulating Server Controls Programmatically | 152 |
| Conclusion | 164 |
| 6 Creating ASP.NET Components | 165 |
| The Trouble with Components | 165 |
| ASP.NET Control Classes | 168 |
| The Life Cycle of a Control | 170 |
| Creating User Controls | 172 |
| Preparing a Web Page to Be Converted to a User Control | 172 |
| Converting a Web Page to a User Control | 176 |
| Creating Custom Controls | 187 |
| A Simple Custom Control | 187 |
| Creating Custom Controls in Visual Studio .NET | 191 |
| A More Complicated Custom Control | 193 |
| A Composite Custom Control | 200 |
| Installing a Control in Visual Studio .NET | 205 |
| Enhancing Design-Time Support | 211 |
| Conclusion | 213 |
| 7 Balancing Server and Client Functionality | 215 |
| Client-Side Scripting | 216 |
| How ASP.NET Uses Client-Side Scripting | 218 |
| Firing Postbacks from a Custom Control | 223 |
| Creating an Extensive Client-Side Web Control | 228 |
| Conclusion | 240 |
| 8 Time to Get the Data! | 241 |
| XML as the Universal Data Language | 241 |
| Current Solutions to Formatting Data vs. the XML Approach | 242 |
| Is XML Perfect? | 244 |
| Using the IEnumerator Interface | 244 |
| Introducing ADO.NET | 249 |
| ADO Overview | 249 |
| Differences Between ADO and ADO.NET | 250 |
| Using ADO.NET from ASP.NET | 252 |
| SqlClient vs. OleDb Classes | 273 |
| Generating XML from Data | 274 |
| Conclusion | 277 |
| 9 Data and ASP.NET Forms | 279 |
| Accessing Data Using ASP Forms | 279 |
| Accessing Data Using ASP.NET Forms | 282 |
| The DataGrid Server Control | 282 |
| Modifying a Data Grid Using the Visual Studio .NET Designer | 284 |
| Modifying a Data Grid Using Visual Basic .NET | 290 |
| The Repeater Server Control | 298 |
| Repeater Control Basics | 300 |
| Creating Data Entry Pages | 310 |
| Creating the User Interface | 312 |
| Processing Data Entry | 320 |
| Conclusion | 332 |
| 10 XML Web Services | 333 |
| Standards for XML Web Services | 334 |
| Creating a Simple XML Web Service | 336 |
| Expanding and Testing the XML Web Service | 337 |
| Using WebMethod Attribute Properties | 342 |
| Consuming a Simple XML Web Service | 344 |
| XML Web Services and Command-Line Tools | 351 |
| A Real-World XML Web Service: Article Distribution | 355 |
| Security Options | 355 |
| Creating and Testing the XML Web Service | 356 |
| Consuming the XML Web Service | 361 |
| Possible Enhancements | 364 |
| Conclusion | 366 |
| APPENDIX A Configuring ASP.NET Applications in IIS | 367 |
| ASP.NET User Authentication | 367 |
| Creating a New Virtual Directory in IIS | 368 |
| APPENDIX B What You Need to Know About HTML to Use This Book | 377 |
| HTML Tags | 378 |
| HTML Links | 378 |
| HTML Widgets | 379 |
| HTML Tables | 382 |
| INDEX | 387 |
