Designing_Microsoft_ASP.NET_Applications (VBL).pdf

Designing Microsoft ASP.NET Applications

Douglas J. Reilly

PUBLISHED BY

Microsoft Press

A Division of Microsoft Corporation

One Microsoft Way

Redmond, Washington 98052-6399

any form

or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reilly, Douglas J.

Designing Microsoft ASP.NET Applications / Douglas J. Reilly.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-7356-1348-6

1. Internet programming. 2. Active server pages. 3. Web servers. I. Title.

QA76.625 .R45 2001

005.2'76-dc21 2001051310

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 QWE 6 5 4 3 2 1

Distributed in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited.

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people, places, and events depicted herein are fictitious. No association with any real

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For Jean, Tim, and Erin-

I owe my life to the people I love.

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About the Author

Ever since he convinced his wife to spend what seemed like far too much money on an Atari

800, Douglas J. Reilly has loved to play with computers. For many years before that, he made

a living repairing photocopiers and early personal computers. But after a while, the software

seemed to be more fun than the hardware.

Doug is the owner of Access Microsystems Inc., a small consulting firm that develops

software using Microsoft Visual C++, Borland Delphi, Microsoft Access, and the Microsoft

.NET Framework. He has created applications to electronically test job applicants, track

retailer's inventory, and repair damaged databases. Currently he is working on a variety of

healthcare applications for the St. Barnabas Health Care System as well as applications for the

golf and leisure industry for Golf Society of the U.S., both in New Jersey. In addition to

developing software, Doug has published articles in Dr. Dobb's Journal and Software

Development , and he wrote a column in the Pervasive Software Developer's Journal . He has

also published another book with Microsoft Press, Inside Server-Based Applications (2000).

Doug lives with his wife, Jean, and their two children, Tim and Erin. When not programming,

he enjoys music, reading, and bicycle riding, although book writing and other concerns have

conspired against serious riding this year. Maybe next year.

Doug can be reached by e-mail at doug@ProgrammingASP.NET .

Acknowledgments

I'm one of a relatively small group of people: long-term survivors of liver cancer. As I was

writing my last book, I was diagnosed with and treated for liver cancer. That I am here to

write about it almost four years later is a testament to good fortune, good technology, and

good people. First among the good people who got me this far is Dr. Hans Gerdes at

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who, along with his office assistant, Joanne Booth-

Pezantez, didn't take 'We don't know what that spot on Doug's liver is' for an answer. Dr.

Gerdes is more than a doctor; he has become someone I trust for advice and support for all the

chaos caused by Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, the disease at the root of my family's

health problems. For more information on this and other hereditary colon cancers, see

http://www.hereditarycc.org .

I must mention the 'Freds' (Fred Stodolak and Fred Paliani), Jim Hoffman, Rich Iavarone,

Tara O'Neill, and Jason Nadal at Golf Society of the U.S. The Freds provided a work

environment that allowed me to use neat technology while not requiring me to dress up. They

also kindly allowed me to use a couple of the articles from the Golf Society of the U.S. Web

site ( http://www.golfsociety.com ) for an example in Chapter 10. Jim was the best boss a guy

could have, especially a guy like me who likes to hole up in the basement and play with

computers. Jim has looked at some of the chapters, and his honest assessment of what makes

sense and what doesn't has helped me a great deal. Rich and Jason have given me a hand on

occasion with JavaScript questions. Tara worked some magic on my picture for use in the

author bio page. Trust me, she didn't have much to work with! Thanks, all.

In my spare time, I do a great deal of work for the St. Barnabas Healthcare System (SBHCS).

Kathy Collins and Rich Wheatley have allowed me to continue working on cool projects in

the four years or so since I left full-time employment there. SBHCS has provided a wonderful

environment for creating cool systems that work on one of the largest intranets in the state. In

addition to Rich and Kathy, I also work closely with Darcy Kindred (an interface goddess),

Ryan Grim, and Joanne Gibson, among others. Thanks for your patience while I was writing

this book. A special thanks to the folks in the SBHCS Behavioral Health Call Center, who

have put up with delays in making changes to their system due to my too busy schedule

during the writing of this book.

Susan Warren at Microsoft was an amazing help, answering more than one frazzled e-mail

when I was late delivering a chapter and the examples just wouldn't work. Her patience in

pointing out my mistakes and her willingness to dig in to get to the bottom of things when

there was a real problem helped immensely. Susan, along with Scott Guthrie and Rob

Howard, also provided great support for me and all the ASP.NET authors, starting what seems

like a lifetime ago, back at the first ASP.NET author's summit.

At that first ASP.NET author's summit, I happened to get teamed up with G. Andrew Duthie

of Graymad Enterprises for a hands-on exercise. Since then, we have corresponded and

commiserated through e-mail and in person at various conferences. Andrew's book on

ASP.NET should be finished 'real soon now,' and I encourage you to take a look at it when it

hits the shelves. Andrew is perhaps the most outspoken proponent of Microsoft technology

that I know, and he uses that technology to do some neat things. Others who I trust for

technical feedback and just plain advice include Ed Colosi, Tom Dignan, Michael Zaccardi,

and Sue Shaw. Claudette Moore, my agent, worked harder on this book than she might on

some others. Thank you for getting in there and helping me organize my thoughts.

Writing a book for Microsoft Press is different than most other book-writing experiences. But

writing this book was different than even the normal Microsoft Press experience. This is not

exactly the book I had initially planned, due in part to the huge success of ASP.NET, even in

beta. Because of this unexpected success, it was important to get the book out there, even if

that meant some last-minute changes. My editor, Sally Stickney; Jennifer Harris, the

manuscript editor; David Clark, the acquisitions editor; and Robert Lyon, the technical editor,

have all been amazing even in the face of seemingly unreasonable deadlines, the normal beta

software weirdness, and my constantly remembering one more great thing I needed to add.

Robert especially has saved me from myself on more than one occasion. Thanks!

Of course, living with an author while he or she is writing a book can be quite an experience

as well. Erin, my daughter, has ensured that I continue to be involved in some of the finer

things in life, such as Ani DiFranco's music. I can't wait for that concert coming up! My son,

Tim, reminded me all summer how important exercise is, and I really did listen. Thanks for

the walks and the bike rides!

Jean, my wife of 23 years, has long been the rock that grounds our family. While I may drift

off on this or that tangent, Jean is the one who makes sure everything that needs to be done

gets done. In the case of our family, that includes almost daily dealings with one health

insurance company or another. For that alone, she has earned a seat in heaven. Of course,

there's much more than that. You know that whole, 'In sickness and in health, for better or

worse' agreement? Jean really meant it! There has been more health than sickness , and more

better than worse , but you really know someone will be there for you when they are there for

you at the worst time of your life and show no signs of giving up on you. Jean, may we spend

forever together, with 100-year extensions!

Introduction

When I look down, I miss all the good stuff.

And when I look up, I just trip over things.

-Ani DiFranco

When I first heard about ASP.NET at a Microsoft author's conference over a year ago, I

thought it might just be too good to be true. I can now create Web pages that are based on

compiled code, in one of many very cool, object-oriented languages? I can use real variables

with types and all? I can create server-side components using the .NET languages that will

allow me to encapsulate all kinds of functionality that my applications need, and I don't have

to worry about deploying COM components? I can use special validator components to

magically test values entered on the client and the server? As I said, it sounded too good to be

true.

In fact, ASP.NET lets you do all that and more. ASP.NET has quite simply changed the way I

build Web applications. While doing some heavy-duty Active Server Pages (ASP)

programming, I always tried to move any functionality I could into the database because the

deployment issues in the database were much easier to deal with than the deployment issues

with ASP files spread over a cluster of machines. I no longer have to do that, and neither will

you!

Of course, with the new abilities comes some additional complexity. The only thing harder

than working with all this new Microsoft .NET Framework complexity is trying to describe it.

While working on many of the chapters in this book, I felt like the writer quoted above.

Dealing with all the nitty-gritty details might hide the total coolness of what I was doing, yet

just looking at the cool results without seeing the details can trip you up.

I've tried to give you the details you need to know to get the job done, but the entire .NET

Framework is huge . There are literally thousands of classes. In many places, I've referred you

to the MSDN documentation included with the .NET Framework, and I encourage you to use

it. If you need to do something with strings, look up the System.String class on MSDN. If file

access is important, look at the System.IO namespace. I've tried to refrain from reproducing

the same information that the MSDN documentation offers, except in areas in which

exhaustive reference source, and this book is more of a tutorial that, after some basics are

covered, will take you through real-world problems and solutions. Both types of information

sources have their place.

Who Should Read This Book

ASP.NET provides an opportunity for developers currently working with ASP to create more

powerful and scalable Web applications. At the same time, ASP.NET provides developers

who haven't previously been involved with Web development with a new opportunity to

begin developing Web applications. Because of the two likely audiences for this book, I don't

assume that all readers will have tremendous experience with Web development. That said, if

you don't understand HTML at all, you need to make sure you know at least what's covered in

Appendix B.

Because you can use both Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and C# with ASP.NET, I don't focus

on one language to the exclusion of the other. A Visual Basic programmer or a C++

programmer new to ASP.NET should be able to follow the samples. The samples alternate

between Visual Basic .NET and C#. In the few cases in which the programming language

matters, I've shown the samples in both languages or, more frequently, pointed out the

differences between the languages. Learning the .NET Framework is the better part of the

work required to learn to use ASP.NET.

Overview of the Book

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