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Asked: 2026-05-30T05:30:50+00:00

I was advised (by a person I cannot now contact to ask this) to

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I was advised (by a person I cannot now contact to ask this) to use a query-string-trick to keep from caching a style sheet while I was debugging. The respondent said this would do the trick:

@{ var currentDate = DateTime.Now; }
<link href="@Url.Content("~/Styles/Site.css?" + currentDate)" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

And I see why, but the expression @{ var currentDate = DateTime.Now; } is just resolving to the literal value in the page when I run it. The full code is:

<head runat="server">
    <title></title>
    @{ var currentDate = DateTime.Now; }
    <link href="@Url.Content("~/Styles/Site.css?" + currentDate)" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

    <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="HeadContent" runat="server">
    </asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
</head>

The syntax “@{ }” is new to me. I don’t see a reference to it in any doc that I have looked at. According to the usage it appears to be inline script, but it isn’t being treated as that at runtime, and I am not even sure if it is Active Server Page syntax (or PHP?).

What DOES work is:

<% var currentDate = DateTime.Now; %>
<link href="~/Styles/Site.css?<%= currentDate%>" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

OK, but still, what does “@{ <some expression> }” signify?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It’s Razor, which is a newer rendering engine for asp.net. It’s doing the exact same thing as your <% %> block of code.

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