Question

I am running into some problem, I created a type that I am using as a HTTPHandler for aspx in my web.config file, the code..

<add path="*.aspx" verb="*" type="myHandler"></add>

The cs page is

public class myHandler :  IHttpHandler
{
    public void ProcessRequest(System.Web.HttpContext context) 
    {
        // check if client browser can accept gzip encoding
        string AcceptEncoding = context.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"];
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(AcceptEncoding) && AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip"))
        {
            // if yes, apply it
            context.Response.Filter = new GZipStream(context.Response.Filter, CompressionMode.Compress);
            context.Response.AddHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip");
        }
        // don't do anything else, just let the default page handling work
    }

    public bool IsReusable
    {
        get { return false; }
    }

}

As you can see, I am checking if the client accepts a gzip encoding, if yes, add it, and let the default process handle…
BUT the response I am getting is..

XML Parsing Error: no element found
Location: http://localhost:49903/Masters/Default.aspx
Line Number 1, Column 1:
^

every single page is returning this error? I am guessing that after I handled the request in my handler, it is somehow clearing everything else or something related.

Firebug shows the following..

Response Headers

Cache-Control   private
Connection  Close
Content-Encoding    gzip
Content-Length  0
Date    Sat, 06 Oct 2012 13:14:50 GMT
Server  ASP.NET Development Server/10.0.0.0
X-AspNet-Version    4.0.30319


Request Headers

Accept  text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Encoding gzip, deflate
Accept-Language en-us,en;q=0.5
Connection  keep-alive
Cookie  ASP.NET_SessionId=1wfoaqta3mosntii1c3ual1i; .ASPXAUTH=D41BBDC2CCF15048BB5A345EBBFBC63EAE35FD37E2F1F170C1D68495477889A989353D4EB30F2B9A723F83C21293A47478B654A1BD2453BCF032DC539427EA0E519D2FEE70DB7660F00AA90E159633C4
Host    localhost:49903
Referer http://localhost:49903/Masters/Default.aspx
User-Agent  Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0.1


Request Headers From Upload Stream

Content-Length  8241
Content-Type    multipart/form-data; boundary=---------------------------2995119424827

So, from what I am guessing, I would like to know is there a way that after I have handled the page my way, I can do something like base.ProcessRequest(). I know its not possible, because I am implementing a interface and not deriving from a class, but I wanna know, how can I let the asp.net engine process the page after am I done with mine?

NB This question is not about implementing gzib encoding, I know I can set it in web config, at each page, in IIS, make a static function in a utility class and call it, and many other things. But again, please don’t answer that I could use a different way to implement this gzip encoding, I know I can, what I am concerned is how can I let asp.net do its default handling (or whatever that may mean) after I am done with my custom handling?

Answer 1

You follow the wrong path. The handler you try to use is for make a totally different way for processing some kind of files ending in a different extensions, by adding the .aspx then you handle that page and not permit the asp.net processing the pages at all.

What you should do is to make an httpModule, eg a class like:

public class gZipModule : IHttpModule
{
    void IHttpModule.Init(HttpApplication context)
    {
        context.BeginRequest += new EventHandler(context_BeginRequest);
    }

    void IHttpModule.Dispose()
    {
    }

    private void context_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        // gzip here
    }
}

and on web config:

<httpModules>
   <add type="gZipModule"  name="gZipModule" />
</httpModules>

or even more simple, on global.asax make at Application_BeginRequest the gZip

protected void Application_BeginRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // check if the file is .aspx, then make gzip
    string cTheFile = HttpContext.Current.Request.Path;
    string sExtentionOfThisFile = System.IO.Path.GetExtension(cTheFile);

    if (sExtentionOfThisFile.Equals(".aspx", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
    {   
        // now make gZip
    }
}