What is an HttpHandler in ASP.NET

Question

What is an HttpHandler in ASP.NET? Why and how is it used?

Answer 1

An ASP.NET HTTP handler is the process (frequently referred to as the "endpoint") that runs in response to a request made to an ASP.NET Web application. The most common handler is an ASP.NET page handler that processes .aspx files. When users request an .aspx file, the request is processed by the page via the page handler.

The ASP.NET page handler is only one type of handler. ASP.NET comes with several other built-in handlers such as the Web service handler for .asmx files.

You can create custom HTTP handlers when you want special handling that you can identify using file name extensions in your application. For example, the following scenarios would be good uses of custom HTTP handlers:

RSS feeds To create an RSS feed for a site, you can create a handler that emits RSS-formatted XML. You can then bind the .rss extension (for example) in your application to the custom handler. When users send a request to your site that ends in .rss, ASP.NET will call your handler to process the request.

Image server If you want your Web application to serve images in a variety of sizes, you can write a custom handler to resize images and then send them back to the user as the handler's response.

HTTP handlers have access to the application context, including the requesting user's identity (if known), application state, and session information. When an HTTP handler is requested, ASP.NET calls the ProcessRequest method on the appropriate handler. The handler's ProcessRequest method creates a response, which is sent back to the requesting browser. As with any page request, the response goes through any HTTP modules that have subscribed to events that occur after the handler has run.