Question

For my newest windows-application I want to create an interface that is web-based using the web-browser control, and I want to make Ajax work on it. Since all the content will be loaded by the web-browser control itself I want to create a web-server that would work on a localhost port and serve my content to the web-browser when it accesses a special url, example:

http://localhost:3454

How can I create a web-server that windows will route requests to? I just need to know about the right API/WinInet commands to start receiving the requests.

Answer 1

Fortunate for you, .NET comes with a pretty decent Web Server built into the framework.

Look at the HttpListener class.

It supports both synchronous and asynchronous modes:

The synchronous model is appropriate
if your application should block while
waiting for a client request and if
you want to process only one request
at a time. Using the synchronous
model, call the GetContext method,
which waits for a client to send a
request. The method returns an
HttpListenerContext object to you for
processing when one occurs.

In the more complex asynchronous
model, your application does not block
while waiting for requests and each
request is processed in its own
execution thread. Use the
BeginGetContext method to specify an
application-defined method to be
called for each incoming request.
Within that method, call the
EndGetContext method to obtain the
request, process it, and respond.

This guy is great because it uses the native web server that is built into modern versions of Windows (XP SP2+ and Server 2003+).