CODEWITHSUNDEEP
asp.net.net-2.0httphandlerserver-side
Gordon Thompson
Gordon Thompson

Reputation: 4824

Best way to inject HTML into a page (server-side) in ASP.NET

I've got a HTTPHandler which returns a lump of HTML. What's the best way to inject this into a control on the server?

I've got it mostly working by using an asp:literal and using WebClient.downloadString() to grab the text from the handler

<asp:Literal runat="server" ID="Text_Page1" Visible="false"></asp:Literal>
<asp:Literal runat="server" ID="Text_Page2" Visible="false"></asp:Literal>

and then in the server-side methods:

Text_Page1.Text = new WebClient().DownloadString("http://localhost:666/" +sPage1URL);
Text_Page2.Text = new WebClient().DownloadString("http://localhost:666/" +sPage2URL);

The hardcoded web-address is just there for testing at the moment. Previously I tried just using "~/" +URL to try and build it up but the WebClient library threw an exception saying that the URL was too long (which is not true I don't think)

Any ideas on the best way to do this from the server-side?

Edit : When I say "Best" I mean most efficient and adhering to "best practices". My method doesn't work so well when it's put onto an authenticated IIS. I'm having trouble authenticating. I thought that doing 

WebClient oClient = new WebClient();
oClient.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
oClient.UseDefaultCredentials = true;
String sData = oClient.DownloadString(sURL);

would work but i get a 401 error. Does anybody have any alternatives?

Cheers

Gordon

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2016

Answers (3)

Till
Till

Reputation: 3154

Without asking any questions about the reasoning behind fetching html via a webrequest from the same application serving the contents of the include, i would wrap the functionality in a WebUserControl. Something along the lines of:

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Web.UI;

public partial class HtmlFetcher : UserControl
{
    //configure this somewhere else in the real world, web.config maybe
    private const string ServiceUrl = "http://localhost:666/";

    public string HtmlPath { get; set; }

    protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter output)
    {
        string outputText = String.Empty;
        try
        {
            outputText = new WebClient().DownloadString(string.Format("{0}{1}", ServiceUrl, HtmlPath));

        } catch (Exception e)
        {
            //Handle that error;
        }
        output.Write(outputText);
    }
}

This is how you would add it to your page:

<%@ Register src="HtmlFetcher.ascx" tagname="HtmlFetcher" tagprefix="uc1" %>
<uc1:HtmlFetcher ID="HtmlFetcher1" HtmlPath="some-test-file.html" runat="server" />

Upvotes: 1

Breno Mansur Rabelo
Breno Mansur Rabelo

Reputation: 153

You can use server side code blocks into your aspx with <% %>.

Try this:

<% new WebClient().DownloadString("http://localhost:666/" +sPage1URL) %>

Upvotes: 0

kleinohad
kleinohad

Reputation: 5912

you will get the data in the string lcHtml then use it as you want

 // *** Establish the request
    string lcUrl = "http://yourURL";
HttpWebRequest loHttp =
         (HttpWebRequest) WebRequest.Create(lcUrl);

    // *** Set properties
    loHttp.Timeout = 10000;     // 10 secs
    loHttp.UserAgent = "Code Sample Web Client";

    // *** Retrieve request info headers
    HttpWebResponse loWebResponse = (HttpWebResponse) loHttp.GetResponse();

    Encoding enc = Encoding.GetEncoding(1252);  // Windows default Code Page

    StreamReader loResponseStream =
       new StreamReader(loWebResponse.GetResponseStream(),enc);

    string lcHtml = loResponseStream.ReadToEnd();

    loWebResponse.Close();
    loResponseStream.Close();

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions