Question

For my global variables and data I find myself in a dilema as to whether to use HttpApplicationState or Static variables – What’s the best approach?

This document states that one should use static variables over httpapplicationstate:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q312607

However, one thing I like about HttpApplicationState (and System.Web.Caching.Cache), is that one can easily enumerate the entries and select which items to remove (I’ve created a global CacheManager.axd for this purpose), whereas I don’t believe there’s an easy way with Static variables (and even then it’s not clear what to do to “re-initialise” them), without recycling the app pool.

Any suggestions on a neat general-purpose way to handle and manage global objects?

Thanks, Mark.

Answer 1

Your instincts are correct. Use System.Web.Caching. The built-in cache management takes care of all the heavy lifting with respect to memory allocation and expiring stale or low priority objects.

Make sure to use a naming convention, for your cache keys, that makes sense down the road. If you start relying heavily on caching, you’ll need to be able to target/filter different cache keys by name.