Community Rocks .

NET – Interview Questions

ASP.NET
• What is view state and use of it?
The current property settings of an ASP.NET page and those of any ASP.NET server
controls contained within the page. ASP.NET can detect when a form is requested for the
first time versus when the form is posted (sent to the server), which allows you to
program accordingly.

• What are user controls and custom controls?

Custom controls:
A control authored by a user or a third-party software vendor that does not belong to
the .NET Framework class library. This is a generic term that includes user controls. A
custom server control is used in Web Forms (ASP.NET pages). A custom client control is
used in Windows Forms applications.

User Controls:
In ASP.NET: A user-authored server control that enables an ASP.NET page to be re-used
as a server control. An ASP.NET user control is authored declaratively and persisted as
a text file with an .ascx extension. The ASP.NET page framework compiles a user control
on the fly to a class that derives from the System.Web.UI.UserControl class.

• What are the validation controls?

A set of server controls included with ASP.NET that test user input in HTML and Web
server controls for programmer-defined requirements. Validation controls perform input
checking in server code. If the user is working with a browser that supports DHTML, the
validation controls can also perform validation using client script.

• What's the difference between Response.Write() andResponse.Output.Write()?

The latter one allows you to write formattedoutput.

• What methods are fired during the page load? Init()

When the page is instantiated, Load() - when the page is loaded into server
memory,PreRender () - the brief moment before the page is displayed to the user as
HTML, Unload() - when page finishes loading.
•
Where does the Web page belong in the .NET Framework class hierarchy?
System.Web.UI.Page

• Where do you store the information about the user's locale?

System.Web.UI.Page.Culture

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• What's the difference between Codebehind="MyCode.aspx.cs" and
Src="MyCode.aspx.cs"?
CodeBehind is relevant to Visual Studio.NET only.

• What's a bubbled event?

When you have a complex control, likeDataGrid, writing an event processing routine for
each object (cell, button,row, etc.) is quite tedious. The controls can bubble up
their eventhandlers, allowing the main DataGrid event handler to take care of its
constituents.
Suppose you want a certain ASP.NET function executed on MouseOver over a certain
button.

• Where do you add an event handler?

It's the Attributesproperty, the Add function inside that property.
e.g. btnSubmit.Attributes.Add("onMouseOver","someClientCode();")

• What data type does the RangeValidator control support?

Integer,String and Date.

• What are the different types of caching?

Caching is a technique widely used in computing to increase performance by
keeping frequently accessed or expensive data in memory. In context of web application,
caching is used to retain the pages or data across HTTP requests and reuse them
without the expense of recreating them.ASP.NET has 3 kinds of caching strategiesOutput
CachingFragment CachingData

CachingOutput Caching: Caches the dynamic output generated by a request. Some

times it is useful to cache the output of a website even for a minute, which will result in a
better performance. For caching the whole page the page should have OutputCache
directive.<%@ OutputCache Duration="60" VaryByParam="state" %>

Fragment Caching: Caches the portion of the page generated by the request. Some
times it is not practical to cache the entire page, in such cases we can cache a portion of
page<%@ OutputCache Duration="120" VaryByParam="CategoryID;SelectedID"%>

Data Caching: Caches the objects programmatically. For data caching asp.net
provides a cache object for eg: cache["States"] = dsStates;

• What do you mean by authentication and authorization?

Authentication is the process of validating a user on the credentials (username and
password) and authorization performs after authentication. After Authentication a user will
be verified for performing the various tasks, It access is limited it is known as
authorization.

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• What are different types of directives in .NET?
@Page: Defines page-specific attributes used by the ASP.NET page parser and compiler.
Can be included only in .aspx files <%@ Page AspCompat="TRUE" language="C#"
%>
@Control:Defines control-specific attributes used by the ASP.NET page parser and
compiler. Can be included only in .ascx files. <%@ Control Language="VB"
EnableViewState="false" %>
@Import: Explicitly imports a namespace into a page or user control. The Import
directive cannot have more than one namespace attribute. To import multiple
namespaces, use multiple @Import directives. <% @ Import
Namespace="System.web" %>
@Implements: Indicates that the current page or user control implements the specified
.NET framework interface.<%@ Implements
Interface="System.Web.UI.IPostBackEventHandler" %>
@Register: Associates aliases with namespaces and class names for concise notation in
custom server control syntax.<%@ Register Tagprefix="Acme" Tagname="AdRotator"
Src="AdRotator.ascx" %>
@Assembly: Links an assembly to the current page during compilation, making all
the assembly's classes and interfaces available for use on the page. <%@
Assembly Name="MyAssembly" %><%@ Assembly Src="MySource.vb" %>
@OutputCache: Declaratively controls the output caching policies of an ASP.NET page
or a user control contained in a page<%@ OutputCache Duration="#ofseconds"
Location="Any | Client | Downstream | Server | None" Shared="True | False"
VaryByControl="controlname" VaryByCustom="browser | customstring"
VaryByHeader="headers" VaryByParam="parametername" %>
@Reference: Declaratively indicates that another user control or page source file
should be dynamically compiled and linked against the page in which this directive is
declared.

• How do I debug an ASP.NET application that wasn't written with Visual Studio.NET
and that doesn't use code-behind?
Start the DbgClr debugger that comes with the .NET Framework SDK, open the file
containing the code you want to debug, and set your breakpoints. Start the ASP.NET
application. Go back to DbgClr, choose Debug Processes from the Tools menu, and
select aspnet_wp.exe from the list of processes. (If aspnet_wp.exe doesn't appear in the
list,check the "Show system processes" box.) Click the Attach button to attach to
aspnet_wp.exe and begin debugging.
Be sure to enable debugging in the ASPX file before debugging it with DbgClr. You can
enable tell ASP.NET to build debug executables by placing a
<%@ Page Debug="true" %> statement at the top of an ASPX file or a
<COMPILATION debug="true" />statement in a Web.config file.

• Can a user browsing my Web site read my Web.config or Global.asax files?

No. The <HTTPHANDLERS>section of Machine.config, which holds the master
configuration settings for ASP.NET, contains entries that map ASAX files, CONFIG files,
and selected other file types to an HTTP handler named HttpForbiddenHandler, which
fails attempts to retrieve the associated file. You can modify it by editing Machine.config

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or including an section in a local Web.config file.

• What's the difference between Page.RegisterClientScriptBlock and

Page.RegisterStartupScript?
RegisterClientScriptBlock is for returning blocks of client-side script containing functions.
RegisterStartupScript is for returning blocks of client-script not packaged in functions-in
other words, code that's to execute when the page is loaded. The latter positions script
blocks near the end of the document so elements on the page that the script interacts are
loaded before the script runs.<%@ Reference Control="MyControl.ascx" %>

• Is it necessary to lock application state before accessing it?

Only if you're performing a multistep update and want the update to be
treated as an atomic operation. Here's an example:
Application.Lock ();
Application["ItemsSold"] = (int) Application["ItemsSold"] + 1;
Application["ItemsLeft"] = (int) Application["ItemsLeft"] - 1;
Application.UnLock ();
By locking application state before updating it and unlocking it afterwards,
you ensure that another request being processed on another thread doesn't
read application state at exactly the wrong time and see an inconsistent view
of it. If I update session state, should I lock it, too? Are concurrent accesses by
multiple requests executing on multiple threads a concern with session state?
Concurrent accesses aren't an issue with session state, for two reasons. One,
it's unlikely that two requests from the same user will overlap. Two, if they do
overlap, ASP.NET locks down session state during request processing so that
two threads can't touch it at once. Session state is locked down when the
HttpApplication instance that's processing the request fires an
AcquireRequestState event and unlocked when it fires a ReleaseRequestState
event.

Do ASP.NET forms authentication cookies provide any protection against

replay attacks? Do they, for example, include the client's IP address or
anything else that would distinguish the real client from an attacker?
No. If an authentication cookie is stolen, it can be used by an attacker. It's up
to you to prevent this from happening by using an encrypted
communications channel (HTTPS). Authentication cookies issued as session
cookies, do, however,include a time-out valid that limits their lifetime. So a
stolen session cookie can only be used in replay attacks as long as the ticket
inside the cookie is valid. The default time-out interval is 30 minutes.You can
change that by modifying the timeout attribute accompanying the <forms>
element in Machine.config or a local Web.config file. Persistent authentication
cookies do not time-out and therefore are a more serious security threat if
stolen.

• How do I send e-mail from an ASP.NET application?

MailMessage message = new MailMessage ();

message.From = <email>;
message.To = <email>;
message.Subject = "Scheduled Power Outage";

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message.Body = "Our servers will be down tonight.";
SmtpMail.SmtpServer = "localhost";
SmtpMail.Send (message);

MailMessage and SmtpMail are classes defined in the .NET Framework Class
Library's System.Web.Mail namespace. Due to a security change made to
ASP.NET just before it shipped, you need to set SmtpMail's SmtpServer
property to "localhost" even though "localhost" is the default. In addition, you
must use the IIS configuration applet to enable localhost (127.0.0.1) to relay
messages through the local SMTP service.

• What are VSDISCO files?

VSDISCO files are DISCO files that support dynamic discovery of Web services.
If you place the following VSDISCO file in a directory on your Web server, for
example, it returns references to all ASMX and DISCO files in the host
directory and any subdirectories not noted in <exclude> elements:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<dynamicDiscovery
xmlns="urn:schemas-dynamicdiscovery:disco.2000-03-17">
<exclude path="_vti_cnf" />
<exclude path="_vti_pvt" />
<exclude path="_vti_log" />
<exclude path="_vti_script" />
<exclude path="_vti_txt" />
</dynamicDiscovery>

• How does dynamic discovery work?

ASP.NET maps the file name extension VSDISCO to an HTTP handler that scans
the host directory and subdirectories for ASMX and DISCO files and returns a
dynamically generated DISCO document. A client who requests a VSDISCO file
gets back what appears to be a static DISCO document.
Note that VSDISCO files are disabled in the release version of ASP.NET. You can
reenable them by uncommenting the line in the <httpHandlers> section of
Machine.config that maps *.vsdisco to
System.Web.Services.Discovery.DiscoveryRequestHandler and granting the
ASPNET user account permission to read the IIS metabase. However,
Microsoft is actively discouraging the use of VSDISCO files because they could
represent a threat to Web server security.

• Is it possible to prevent a browser from caching an ASPX page?

Just call SetNoStore on the HttpCachePolicy object exposed through the
Response object's Cache property, as demonstrated here:

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>

<html>
<body>
<%
Response.Cache.SetNoStore ();

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Response.Write (DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString ());
%>
</body>
</html>

SetNoStore works by returning a Cache-Control: private, no-store header in

the HTTP response. In this example, it prevents caching of a Web page that
shows the current time.

• What does AspCompat="true" mean and when should I use it?

AspCompat is an aid in migrating ASP pages to ASPX pages. It defaults to false
but should be set to true in any ASPX file that creates apartment-threaded
COM objects--that is, COM objects registered ThreadingModel=Apartment.
That includes all COM objects written with Visual Basic 6.0. AspCompat
should also be set to true (regardless of threading model) if the page creates
COM objects that access intrinsic ASP objects such as Request and Response.
The following directive sets AspCompat to true:

<%@ Page AspCompat="true" %>

Setting AspCompat to true does two things. First, it makes intrinsic ASP
objects available to the COM components by placing unmanaged wrappers
around the equivalent ASP.NET objects. Second, it improves the performance
of calls that the page places to apartment- threaded COM objects by ensuring
that the page (actually, the thread that processes the request for the page)
and the COM objects it creates share an apartment. AspCompat="true" forces
ASP.NET request threads into single-threaded apartments (STAs). If those
threads create COM objects marked ThreadingModel=Apartment, then the
objects are created in the same STAs as the threads that created them.
Without AspCompat="true," request threads run in a multithreaded apartment
(MTA) and each call to an STA-based COM object incurs a performance hit
when it's marshaled across apartment boundaries.

Do not set AspCompat to true if your page uses no COM objects or if it uses
COM objects that don't access ASP intrinsic objects and that are registered
ThreadingModel=Free or ThreadingModel=Both.

• Explain the differences between Server-side and Client-side code?

Server side scripting means that all the script will be executed by the server
and interpreted as needed. ASP doesn't have some of the functionality like
sockets, uploading, etc. For these you have to make a custom components
usually in VB or VC++. Client side scripting means that the script will be
executed immediately in the browser such as form field validation, clock,
email validation, etc. Client side scripting is usually done in VBScript or
JavaScript. Download time, browser compatibility, and visible code - since
JavaScript and VBScript code is included in the HTML page, then anyone can
see the code by viewing the page source. Also a possible security hazards for
the client computer.

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• What type of code (server or client) is found in a Code-Behind class?
C#

• Should validation (did the user enter a real date) occur server-side or
client-side? Why?
Client-side validation because there is no need to request a server side date
when you could obtain a date from the client machine.

• What are ASP.NET Web Forms? How is this technology different than
what is available though ASP?
Web Forms are the heart and soul of ASP.NET. Web Forms are the User
Interface (UI) elements that give your Web applications their look and feel.
Web Forms are similar to Windows Forms in that they provide properties,
methods, and events for the controls that are placed onto them. However,
these UI elements render themselves in the appropriate markup language
required by the request, e.g. HTML. If you use Microsoft Visual Studio .NET,
you will also get the familiar drag-and-drop interface used to create your UI for
your Web application.

• What is the difference between Server.Transfer and

Response.Redirect? Why would I choose one over the other?
In earlier versions of IIS, if we wanted to send a user to a new Web page, the
only option we had was Response.Redirect. While this method does
accomplish our goal, it has several important drawbacks. The biggest problem
is that this method causes each page to be treated as a separate transaction.
Besides making it difficult to maintain your transactional integrity,
Response.Redirect introduces some additional headaches. First, it prevents
good encapsulation of code. Second, you lose access to all of the properties in
the Request object. Sure, there are workarounds, but they're difficult. Finally,
Response.Redirect necessitates a round trip to the client, which, on high-
volume sites, causes scalability problems.
As you might suspect, Server.Transfer fixes all of these problems. It does this
by performing the transfer on the server without requiring a roundtrip to the
client.

• How can you provide an alternating color scheme in a Repeater

control?
AlternatingItemTemplate Like the ItemTemplate element, but rendered for
every other row (alternating items) in the Repeater control. You can specify a

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different appearance for the AlternatingItemTemplate element by setting its
style properties.

• Which template must you provide, in order to display data in a

Repeater control?
ItemTemplate

• What event handlers can I include in Global.asax?

Application_Start,Application_End, Application_AcquireRequestState,
Application_AuthenticateRequest, Application_AuthorizeRequest,
Application_BeginRequest, Application_Disposed, Application_EndRequest,
Application_Error, Application_PostRequestHandlerExecute,
Application_PreRequestHandlerExecute,
Application_PreSendRequestContent, Application_PreSendRequestHeaders,
Application_ReleaseRequestState, Application_ResolveRequestCache,
Application_UpdateRequestCache, Session_Start,Session_End
You can optionally include "On" in any of method names. For example, you
can name a BeginRequest event handler.Application_BeginRequest or
Application_OnBeginRequest.You can also include event handlers in
Global.asax for events fired by custom HTTP modules.Note that not all of the
event handlers make sense for Web Services (they're designed for ASP.NET
applications in general, whereas .NET XML Web Services are specialized
instances of an ASP.NET app). For example, the
Application_AuthenticateRequest and Application_AuthorizeRequest events
are designed to be used with ASP.NET Forms authentication.

• What is different b/w webconfig.xml & Machineconfig.xml

Web.config & machine.config both are configuration files.Web.config contains
settings specific to an application where as machine.config contains settings
to a computer. The Configuration system first searches settings in
machine.config file & then looks in application configuration files.Web.config,
can appear in multiple directories on an ASP.NET Web application server. Each
Web.config file applies configuration settings to its own directory and all child
directories below it. There is only Machine.config file on a web server.

If I'm developing an application that must accomodate multiple security levels

though secure login and my ASP.NET web appplication is spanned across three
web-servers (using round-robbin load balancing) what would be the best
approach to maintain login-in state for the users?
Use the state server or store the state in the database. This can be easily
done through simple setting change in the web.config.
<SESSIONSTATE
StateConnectionString="tcpip=127.0.0.1:42424"

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sqlConnectionString="data source=127.0.0.1; user id=sa; password="
cookieless="false"
timeout="30"
/>

You can specify mode as “stateserver” or “sqlserver”.

Where would you use an iHTTPModule, and what are the limitations of any
approach you might take in implementing one
"One of ASP.NET's most useful features is the extensibility of the HTTP
pipeline, the path that data takes between client and server. You can use them
to extend your ASP.NET applications by adding pre- and post-processing to
each HTTP request coming into your application. For example, if you wanted
custom authentication facilities for your application, the best technique would
be to intercept the request when it comes in and process the request in a
custom HTTP module.

• How do you turn off cookies for one page in your site?
Since no Page Level directive is present, I am afraid that cant be done.

• How do you create a permanent cookie?

Permanent cookies are available until a specified expiration date, and are
stored on the hard disk.So Set the 'Expires' property any value greater than
DataTime.MinValue with respect to the current datetime. If u want the cookie
which never expires set its Expires property equal to DateTime.maxValue.

• Which method do you use to redirect the user to another page

without performing a round trip to the client?
Server.Transfer and Server.Execute

• What property do you have to set to tell the grid which page to go to
when using the Pager object?
CurrentPageIndex

• Should validation (did the user enter a real date) occur server-side or
client-side? Why?
It should occur both at client-side and Server side.By using expression
validator control with the specified expression ie.. the regular expression
provides the facility of only validatating the date specified is in the correct

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format or not. But for checking the date where it is the real data or not should
be done at the server side, by getting the system date ranges and checking
the date whether it is in between that range or not.

• What does the "EnableViewState" property do? Why would I want it

on or off?
Enable ViewState turns on the automatic state management feature that
enables server controls to re-populate their values on a round trip without
requiring you to write any code. This feature is not free however, since the
state of a control is passed to and from the server in a hidden form field. You
should be aware of when ViewState is helping you and when it is not. For
example, if you are binding a control to data on every round trip, then you do
not need the control to maintain it's view state, since you will wipe out any re-
populated data in any case. ViewState is enabled for all server controls by
default. To disable it, set the EnableViewState property of the control to false.

• What is the difference between Server.Transfer and

Response.Redirect? Why would I choose one over the other?
Server.Transfer() : client is shown as it is on the requesting page only, but the
all the content is of the requested page. Data can be persist accros the pages
using Context.Item collection, which is one of the best way to transfer data
from one page to another keeping the page state alive.

Response.Dedirect() :client know the physical location (page name and query
string as well). Context.Items loses the persisitance when nevigate to
destination page. In earlier versions of IIS, if we wanted to send a user to a
new Web page, the only option we had was Response.Redirect. While this
method does accomplish our goal, it has several important drawbacks. The
biggest problem is that this method causes each page to be treated as a
separate transaction. Besides making it difficult to maintain your transactional
integrity, Response.Redirect introduces some additional headaches. First, it
prevents good encapsulation of code. Second, you lose access to all of the
properties in the Request object. Sure, there are workarounds, but they're
difficult. Finally, Response.Redirect necessitates a round trip to the client,
which, on high-volume sites, causes scalability problems. As you might
suspect, Server.Transfer fixes all of these problems. It does this by performing
the transfer on the server without requiring a roundtrip to the client.

• Can you give an example of when it would be appropriate to use a

web service as opposed to a non-serviced .NET component?

Communicating through a Firewall When building a distributed application

with 100s/1000s of users spread over multiple locations, there is always the
problem of communicating between client and server because of firewalls and

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proxy servers. Exposing your middle tier components as Web Services and
invoking the directly from a Windows UI is a very valid option.

Application Integration When integrating applications written in various

languages and running on disparate systems. Or even applications running on
the same platform that have been written by separate vendors.

Business-to-Business Integration This is an enabler for B2B intergtation which

allows one to expose vital business processes to authorized supplier and
customers. An example would be exposing electronic ordering and invoicing,
allowing customers to send you purchase orders and suppliers to send you
invoices electronically.

Software Reuse This takes place at multiple levels. Code Reuse at the Source
code level or binary componet-based resuse. The limiting factor here is that
you can reuse the code but not the data behind it. Webservice overcome this
limitation. A scenario could be when you are building an app that aggregates
the functionality of serveral other Applicatons. Each of these functions could
be performed by individual apps, but there is value in perhaps combining the
the multiple apps to present a unifiend view in a Portal or Intranet.

When not to use Web Services: Single machine Applicatons When the apps are
running on the same machine and need to communicate with each other use
a native API. You also have the options of using component technologies such
as COM or .NET Componets as there is very little overhead.

Homogeneous Applications on a LAN If you have Win32 or Winforms apps that

want to communicate to their server counterpart. It is much more efficient to
use DCOM in the case of Win32 apps and .NET Remoting in the case of .NET
Apps

• Can you give an example of what might be best suited to place in the
Application_Start and Session_Start subroutines?
The Application_Start event is guaranteed to occur only once throughout the
lifetime of the application. It's a good place to initialize global variables. For
example, you might want to retrieve a list of products from a database table
and place the list in application state or the Cache object. SessionStateModule
exposes both Session_Start and Session_End events.

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of viewstate?

The primary advantages of the ViewState feature in ASP.NET are:
1. Simplicity. There is no need to write possibly complex code to store form
data between page submissions.
2. Flexibility. It is possible to enable, configure, and disable ViewState on a
control-by-control basis, choosing to persist the values of some fields but not
others.
There are, however a few disadvantages that are worth pointing out:
1. Does not track across pages. ViewState information does not automatically
transfer from page to page. With the session
approach, values can be stored in the session and accessed from other pages.

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This is not possible with ViewState, so storing
data into the session must be done explicitly.
2. ViewState is not suitable for transferring data for back-end systems. That is,
data still has to be transferred to the back
end using some form of data object.

• Describe session handling in a webfarm, how does it work and what

are the limits?
ASP.NET Session supports storing of session data in 3 ways, i] in In-Process ( in
the same memory that ASP.NET uses) , ii] out-of-process using Windows NT
Service )in separate memory from ASP.NET ) or iii] in SQL Server (persistent
storage). Both the Windows Service and SQL Server solution support a
webfarm scenario where all the web-servers can be configured to share
common session state store.

1. Windows Service :
We can start this service by Start | Control Panel | Administrative Tools |
Services | . In that we service names ASP.NET State Service. We can start or
stop service by manually or configure to start automatically. Then we have to
configure our web.config file

<CONFIGURATION><configuration>
<system.web>
<SessionState
mode = “StateServer”
stateConnectionString = “tcpip=127.0.0.1:42424”
stateNetworkTimeout = “10”
sqlConnectionString=”data source = 127.0.0.1; uid=sa;pwd=”
cookieless =”Flase”
timeout= “20” />
</system.web>
</configuration> </SYSTEM.WEB>
</CONFIGURATION>
Here ASP.Net Session is directed to use Windows Service for state
management on local server (address : 127.0.0.1 is TCP/IP loop-back address).
The default port is 42424. we can configure to any port but for that we have to
manually edit the registry.
Follow these simple steps
- In a webfarm make sure you have the same config file in all your web
servers.
- Also make sure your objects are serializable.
- For session state to be maintained across different web servers in the
webfarm, the application path of the web-site in the IIS Metabase should be
identical in all the web-servers in the webfarm.

• Which template must you provide, in order to display data in a

Repeater control?
You have to use the ItemTemplate to Display data. Syntax is as follows,
< ItemTemplate >
< div class =”rItem” >

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< img src=”images/<%# Container.DataItem(“ImageURL”)%>”
hspace=”10” />
< b > <% # Container.DataItem(“Title”)%>
< /div >
< ItemTemplate >

• How can you provide an alternating color scheme in a Repeater

control?
Using the AlternatintItemTemplate

• What property must you set, and what method must you call in your
code, in order to bind the data from some data source to the
Repeater control?
Set the DataMember property to the name of the table to bind to. (If this
property is not set, by default the first table in the dataset is used.)
DataBind method, use this method to bind data from a source to a server
control. This method is commonly used after retrieving a data set through a
database query.

• What method do you use to explicitly kill a user s session?

You can dump (Kill) the session yourself by calling the method
Session.Abandon.

ASP.NET automatically deletes a user's Session object, dumping its contents,

after it has been idle for a configurable timeout interval. This interval, in
minutes, is set in the <SESSIONSTATE>section of the web.config file. The
default is 20 minutes.

• How do you turn off cookies for one page in your site?
Use Cookie.Discard property, Gets or sets the discard flag set by the server.
When true, this property instructs the client application not to save the Cookie
on the user's hard disk when a session ends.

• Which two properties are on every validation control?

We have two common properties for every validation controls
1. Control to Validate,
2. Error Message.

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• What tags do you need to add within the asp:datagrid tags to bind
columns manually?

< asp:DataGrid id="dgCart" AutoGenerateColumns="False" CellPadding="4"

Width="448px" runat="server" >
< Columns >
< asp:ButtonColumn HeaderText="SELECT" Text="SELECT"
CommandName="select" >< /asp:ButtonColumn >
< asp:BoundColumn DataField="ProductId" HeaderText="Product ID" ><
/asp:BoundColumn >
< asp:BoundColumn DataField="ProductName" HeaderText="Product Name"
>< /asp:BoundColumn >
< asp:BoundColumn DataField="UnitPrice" HeaderText="UnitPrice" ><
/asp:BoundColumn >
< /Columns >
< /asp:DataGrid >

• How do you create a permanent cookie?

Permanent cookies are the ones that are most useful. Permanent cookies are
available until a specified expiration date, and are stored on the hard disk. The
location of cookies differs with each browser, but this doesn’t matter, as this is
all handled by your browser and the server. If you want to create a permanent
cookie called Name with a value of Nigel, which expires in one month, you’d
use the following code
Response.Cookies ("Name") = "Nigel"
Response.Cookies ("Name"). Expires = DateAdd ("m", 1, Now ())

• What tag do you use to add a hyperlink column to the DataGrid?

< asp:HyperLinkColumn > </ asp:HyperLinkColumn>

• Which method do you use to redirect the user to another page

without performing a round trip to the client?
Server.transfer

• What is the transport protocol you use to call a Web service SOAP ?
HTTP Protocol

• Explain role based security ?

Role Based Security lets you identify groups of users to allow or deny based

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on their role in the organization.In Windows NT and Windows XP, roles map to
names used to identify user groups. Windows defines several built-in groups,
including Administrators, Users, and Guests.To allow or deny access to certain
groups of users, add the <ROLES>element to the authorization list in your
Web application's Web.config file.e.g.
<AUTHORIZATION>< authorization >
< allow roles="Domain Name\Administrators" / > < !-- Allow
Administrators in domain. -- >
< deny users="*" / > < !-- Deny anyone else. -- >
< /authorization >

• How do you register JavaScript for webcontrols ?

You can register javascript for controls using <CONTROL -name>Attribtues.
Add(scriptname,scripttext) method.

• When do you set "<IDENTITY impersonate="true" />" ?

Identity is a webconfig declaration under System.web, which helps to control
the application Identity of the web applicaton. Which can be at any
level(Machine,Site,application,subdirectory,or page), attribute impersonate
with "true" as value specifies that client impersonation is used.

• What are different templates available in Repeater,DataList and

Datagrid ?
Templates enable one to apply complicated formatting to each of the items
displayed by a control.Repeater control supports five types of
templates.HeaderTemplate controls how the header of the repeater control is
formatted.ItemTemplate controls the formatting of each item
displayed.AlternatingItemTemplate controls how alternate items are formatted
and the SeparatorTemplate displays a separator between each item
displyed.FooterTemplate is used for controlling how the footer of the repeater
control is formatted.The DataList and Datagrid supports two templates in
addition to the above five.SelectedItem Template controls how a selected item
is formatted and EditItemTemplate controls how an item selected for editing
is formatted.

• What is ViewState ? and how it is managed ?

ASP.NET ViewState is a new kind of state service that developers can use to
track UI state on a per-user basis. Internally it uses an an old Web
programming trick-roundtripping state in a hidden form field and bakes it

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right into the page-processing framework.It needs less code to write and
maintain state in your Web-based forms.

• What is web.config file ?

Web.config file is the configuration file for the Asp.net web application. There
is one web.config file for one asp.net application which configures
the particular application. Web.config file is written in XML with specific tags
having specific meanings.It includes databa which includes
connections,Session States,Error Handling,Security etc.
For example :

< configuration >

< appSettings >
< add key="ConnectionString"
value="server=localhost;uid=sa;pwd=;database=MyDB" / >
< /appSettings >
< /configuration >

• What is advantage of viewstate and what are benefits?

When a form is submitted in classic ASP, all form values are cleared. Suppose
you have submitted a form with a lot of information and the server comes
back with an error. You will have to go back to the form and correct the
information. You click the back button, and what happens.......ALL form values
are CLEARED, and you will have to start all over again! The site did not
maintain your ViewState.With ASP .NET, the form reappears in the browser
window together with all form values.This is because ASP .NET maintains your
ViewState. The ViewState indicates the status of the page when submitted to
the server.

• What tags do you need to add within the asp:datagrid tags to bind
columns manually?
Set AutoGenerateColumns Property to false on the datagrid tag and then use
Column tag and an ASP:databound tag

< asp:DataGrid runat="server" id="ManualColumnBinding"

AutoGenerateColumns="False" >
< Columns >
< asp:BoundColumn HeaderText="Column1" DataField="Column1"/ >
< asp:BoundColumn HeaderText="Column2" DataField="Column2"/ >
< /Columns >
< /asp:DataGrid >
<asp:DataGrid id=ManualColumnBinding runat="server"
AutoGenerateColumns="False">
<COLUMNS> <asp:BoundColumn HeaderText="Column2"

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DataField="Column2"></asp:BoundColumn>
</asp:DataGrid>

• Which property on a Combo Box do you set with a column name, prior
to setting the DataSource, to display data in the combo box?
DataTextField and DataValueField

• Which control would you use if you needed to make sure the values
in two different controls matched?
CompareValidator is used to ensure that two fields are identical.

• What is validationsummary server control?where it is used?.

The ValidationSummary control allows you to summarize the error messages
from all validation controls on a Web page in a single location. The summary
can be displayed as a list, a bulleted list, or a single paragraph, based on the
value of the DisplayMode property. The error message displayed in the
ValidationSummary control for each validation control on the page is specified
by the ErrorMessage property of each validation control. If the ErrorMessage
property of the validation control is not set, no error message is displayed in
the ValidationSummary control for that validation control. You can also specify
a custom title in the heading section of the ValidationSummary control by
setting the HeaderText property.
You can control whether the ValidationSummary control is displayed or hidden
by setting the ShowSummary property. The summary can also be displayed in
a message box by setting the ShowMessageBox property to true.

• What is the sequence of operation takes place when a page is

loaded?
BeginTranaction - only if the request is transacted
Init - every time a page is processed
LoadViewState - Only on postback
ProcessPostData1 - Only on postback
Load - every time
ProcessData2 - Only on Postback
RaiseChangedEvent - Only on Postback
RaisePostBackEvent - Only on Postback
PreRender - everytime
BuildTraceTree - only if tracing is enabled
SaveViewState - every time
Render - Everytime
End Transaction - only if the request is transacted
Trace.EndRequest - only when tracing is enabled
UnloadRecursive - Every request

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• Difference between asp and asp.net?.

"ASP (Active Server Pages) and ASP.NET are both server side technologies for
building web sites and web applications, ASP.NET is Managed compiled code -
asp is interpreted. and ASP.net is fully Object oriented. ASP.NET has been
entirely re-architected to provide a highly productive programming experience
based on the .NET Framework, and a robust infrastructure for building reliable
and scalable web
applications."

• Name the validation control available in asp.net?.

RequiredField, RangeValidator,RegularExpression,Custom validator,compare
Validator

• What are the various ways of securing a web site that could prevent
from hacking etc .. ?
1) Authentication/Authorization
2) Encryption/Decryption
3) Maintaining web servers outside the corporate firewall. etc.,

• What is the difference between in-proc and out-of-proc?

An inproc is one which runs in the same process area as that of the client
giving tha advantage of speed but the disadvantage of stability becoz if it
crashes it takes the client application also with it.Outproc is one which works
outside the clients memory thus giving stability to the client, but we have to
compromise a bit on speed.

• When you’re running a component within ASP.NET, what process is it

running within on Windows XP? Windows 2000? Windows 2003?
On Windows 2003 (IIS 6.0) running in native mode, the component is running
within the w3wp.exe process associated with the application pool which has
been configured for the web application containing the component.

On Windows 2003 in IIS 5.0 emulation mode, 2000, or XP, it's running within
the IIS helper process whose name I do not remember, it being quite a while
since I last used IIS 5.0.

• What does aspnet_regiis -i do ?

Aspnet_regiis.exe is The ASP.NET IIS Registration tool allows an administrator
or installation program to easily update the script maps for an ASP.NET

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application to point to the ASP.NET ISAPI version associated with the tool. The
tool can also be used to display the status of all installed versions of ASP. NET,
register the ASP.NET version coupled with the tool, create client-script
directories, and perform other configuration operations.

When multiple versions of the .NET Framework are executing side-by-side on a

single computer, the ASP.NET ISAPI version mapped to an ASP.NET application
determines which version of the common language runtime is used for the
application.

The tool can be launched with a set of optional parameters. Option "i" Installs
the version of ASP.NET associated with Aspnet_regiis.exe and updates the
script maps at the IIS metabase root and below. Note that only applications
that are currently mapped to an earlier version of ASP.NET are affected

• What is a PostBack?
The process in which a Web page sends data back to the same page on the
server.

• What is ViewState? How is it encoded? Is it encrypted? Who uses

ViewState?
ViewState is the mechanism ASP.NET uses to keep track of server control state
values that don't otherwise post back as part of the HTTP form. ViewState
Maintains the UI State of a Page
ViewState is base64-encoded.
It is not encrypted but it can be encrypted by setting
EnableViewStatMAC="true" & setting the machineKey validation type to
3DES. If you want to NOT maintain the ViewState, include the directive < %@
Page EnableViewState="false" % > at the top of an .aspx page or add the
attribute EnableViewState="false" to any control.

• What is the < machinekey > element and what two ASP.NET
technologies is it used for?
Configures keys to use for encryption and decryption of forms authentication
cookie data and view state data, and for verification of out-of-process session
state identification.There fore 2 ASP.Net technique in which it is used are
Encryption/Decryption & Verification

• What three Session State providers are available in ASP.NET 1.1?

What are the pros and cons of each?
ASP.NET provides three distinct ways to store session data for your
application: in-process session state, out-of-process session state as a
Windows service, and out-of-process session state in a SQL Server database.
Each has it advantages.

1.In-process session-state mode

Limitations:
* When using the in-process session-state mode, session-state data is lost if
aspnet_wp.exe or the application domain restarts.
* If you enable Web garden mode in the < processModel > element of the

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application's Web.config file, do not use in-process session-state mode.
Otherwise, random data loss can occur.
Advantage:
* in-process session state is by far the fastest solution. If you are storing only
small amounts of volatile data in session state, it is recommended that you
use the in-process provider.

2. The State Server simply stores session state in memory when in out-of-proc
mode. In this mode the worker process talks directly to the State Server

3. SQL mode, session states are stored in a SQL Server database and the
worker process talks directly to SQL. The ASP.NET worker processes are then
able to take advantage of this simple storage service by serializing and saving
(using .NET serialization services) all objects within a client's Session
collection at the end of each Web request
Both these out-of-process solutions are useful primarily if you scale your
application across multiple processors or multiple computers, or where data
cannot be lost if a server or process is restarted.

• What is the difference between HTTP-Post and HTTP-Get?

As their names imply, both HTTP GET and HTTP POST use HTTP as their
underlying protocol. Both of these methods encode request parameters as
name/value pairs in the HTTP request.
The GET method creates a query string and appends it to the script's URL on
the server that handles the request.
The POST method creates a name/value pairs that are passed in the body of
the HTTP request message.

• Name and describe some HTTP Status Codes and what they express
to the requesting client.
When users try to access content on a server that is running Internet
Information Services (IIS) through HTTP or File Transfer Protocol (FTP), IIS
returns a numeric code that indicates the status of the request. This status
code is recorded in the IIS log, and it may also be displayed in the Web
browser or FTP client. The status code can indicate whether a particular
request is successful or unsuccessful and can also reveal the exact reason
why a request is unsuccessful. There are 5 groups ranging from 1xx - 5xx of
http status codes exists.
101 - Switching protocols.
200 - OK. The client request has succeeded
302 - Object moved.
400 - Bad request.
500.13 - Web server is too busy.

• Explain < @OutputCache% > and the usage of VaryByParam,

VaryByHeader.
OutputCache is used to control the caching policies of an ASP.NET page or
user control. To cache a page @OutputCache directive should be defined as
follows < %@ OutputCache Duration="100" VaryByParam="none" % >

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VaryByParam: A semicolon-separated list of strings used to vary the output
cache. By default, these strings correspond to a query string value sent with
GET method attributes, or a parameter sent using the POST method. When
this attribute is set to multiple parameters, the output cache contains a
different version of the requested document for each specified parameter.
Possible values include none, *, and any valid query string or POST parameter
name.

VaryByHeader: A semicolon-separated list of HTTP headers used to vary the

output cache. When this attribute is set to multiple headers, the output cache
contains a different version of the requested document for each specified
header.

• What is the difference between repeater over datalist and datagrid?

The Repeater class is not derived from the WebControl class, like the DataGrid
and DataList. Therefore, the Repeater lacks the stylistic properties common to
both the DataGrid and DataList. What this boils down to is that if you want to
format the data displayed in the Repeater, you must do so in the HTML
markup.
The Repeater control provides the maximum amount of flexibility over the
HTML produced. Whereas the DataGrid wraps the DataSource contents in an
HTML < table >, and the DataList wraps the contents in either an HTML <
table > or < span > tags (depending on the DataList's RepeatLayout
property), the Repeater adds absolutely no HTML content other than what you
explicitly specify in the templates.
While using Repeater control, If we wanted to display the employee names in
a bold font we'd have to alter the "ItemTemplate" to include an HTML bold tag,
Whereas with the DataGrid or DataList, we could have made the text appear
in a bold font by setting the control's ItemStyle-Font-Bold property to True.
The Repeater's lack of stylistic properties can drastically add to the
development time metric. For example, imagine that you decide to use the
Repeater to display data that needs to be bold, centered, and displayed in a
particular font-face with a particular background color. While all this can be
specified using a few HTML tags, these tags will quickly clutter the Repeater's
templates. Such clutter makes it much harder to change the look at a later
date. Along with its increased development time, the Repeater also lacks any
built-in functionality to assist in supporting paging, editing, or editing of data.
Due to this lack of feature-support, the Repeater scores poorly on the usability
scale.

However, The Repeater's performance is slightly better than that of the

DataList's, and is more noticeably better than that of the DataGrid's. Following
figure shows the number of requests per second the Repeater could handle
versus the DataGrid and DataList

• Can we handle the error and redirect to some pages using

web.config?

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Yes, we can do this, but to handle errors, we must know the error codes; only
then we can take the user to a proper error message page, else it may
confuse the user.
CustomErrors Configuration section in web.config file:
The default configuration is:
< customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="Customerror.aspx" >
< error statusCode="404" redirect="Notfound.aspx" / >
< /customErrors >
If mode is set to Off, custom error messages will be disabled. Users will
receive detailed exception error messages.
If mode is set to On, custom error messages will be enabled.
If mode is set to RemoteOnly, then users will receive custom errors, but users
accessing the site locally will receive detailed error messages.
Add an < error > tag for each error you want to handle. The error tag will
redirect the user to the Notfound.aspx page when the site returns the 404
(Page not found) error.

[Example]

There is a page MainForm.aspx

Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As

System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
'Put user code to initialize the page here
Dim str As System.Text.StringBuilder
str.Append("hi") ' Error Line as str is not instantiated
Response.Write(str.ToString)
End Sub

[Web.Config]

< customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="Error.aspx"/ >

' a simple redirect will take the user to Error.aspx [user defined] error file.

< customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="Customerror.aspx" >

< error statusCode="404" redirect="Notfound.aspx" / >
< /customErrors >
'This will take the user to NotFound.aspx defined in IIS.

• How do you implement Paging in .Net?

The DataGrid provides the means to display a group of records from the data
source (for example, the first 10), and then navigate to the "page" containing
the next 10 records, and so on through the data.

Using Ado.Net we can explicit control over the number of records returned
from the data source, as well as how much data is to be cached locally in the
DataSet.
1.Using DataAdapter.fill method give the value of 'Maxrecords' parameter

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(Note: - Don't use it because query will return all records but fill the dataset
based on value of 'maxrecords' parameter).
2.For SQL server database, combines a WHERE clause and a ORDER BY clause
with TOP predicate.
3.If Data does not change often just cache records locally in DataSet and just
take some records from the DataSet to display.

• What is the difference between Server.Transfer and

Response.Redirect?

Server.Transfer() : client is shown as it is on the requesting page only, but the

all the content is of the requested page. Data can be persist across the pages
using Context.Item collection, which is one of the best way to transfer data
from one page to another keeping the page state alive.

Response.Dedirect() :client knows the physical location (page name and query
string as well). Context.Items loses the persistence when navigate to
destination page. In earlier versions of IIS, if we wanted to send a user to a
new Web page, the only option we had was Response.Redirect. While this
method does accomplish our goal, it has several important drawbacks. The
biggest problem is that this method causes each page to be treated as a
separate transaction. Besides making it difficult to maintain your transactional
integrity, Response.Redirect introduces some additional headaches. First, it
prevents good encapsulation of code. Second, you lose access to all of the
properties in the Request object. Sure, there are workarounds, but they're
difficult. Finally, Response.Redirect necessitates a round trip to the client,
which, on high-volume sites, causes scalability problems. As you might
suspect, Server.Transfer fixes all of these problems. It does this by performing
the transfer on the server without requiring a roundtrip to the client.

Response.Redirect sends a response to the client browser instructing it to

request the second page. This requires a round-trip to the client, and the
client initiates the Request for the second page. Server.Transfer transfers the
process to the second page without making a round-trip to the client. It also
transfers the HttpContext to the second page, enabling the second page
access to all the values in the HttpContext of the first page.

• Can you create an app domain?

Yes, We can create user app domain by calling on of the following overload
static methods of the System.AppDomain class
1. Public static AppDomain CreateDomain(String friendlyName)
2. Public static AppDomain CreateDomain(String friendlyName, Evidence
securityInfo)
3. Public static AppDomain CreateDomain(String friendlyName, Evidence
securityInfo, AppDomainSetup info)
4. Public static AppDomain CreateDomain(String friendlyName, Evidence
securityInfo, String appBasePath, String appRelativeSearchPath, bool
shadowCopyFiles)

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• What are the various security methods which IIS Provides apart from
.NET ?

The various security methods which IIS provides are

a) Authentication Modes
b) IP Address and Domain Name Restriction
c) DNS Lookups DNS Lookups
d) The Network ID and Subnet Mask
e) SSL

• What is Web Gardening? How would using it affect a design?

The Web Garden Model

The Web garden model is configurable through the section of the
machine.config file. Notice that the section is the only configuration section
that cannot be placed in an application-specific web.config file. This means
that the Web garden mode applies to all applications running on the machine.
However, by using the node in the machine.config source, you can adapt
machine-wide settings on a per-application basis.

Two attributes in the section affect the Web garden model. They are
webGarden and cpuMask. The webGarden attribute takes a Boolean value that
indicates whether or not multiple worker processes (one per each affinitized
CPU) have to be used. The attribute is set to false by default. The cpuMask
attribute stores a DWORD value whose binary representation provides a bit
mask for the CPUs that are eligible to run the ASP.NET worker process. The
default value is -1 (0xFFFFFF), which means that all available CPUs can be
used. The contents of the cpuMask attribute is ignored when the webGarden
attribute is false. The cpuMask attribute also sets an upper bound to the
number of copies of aspnet_wp.exe that are running.

Web gardening enables multiple worker processes to run at the same time.
However, you should note that all processes will have their own copy of
application state, in-process session state, ASP.NET cache, static data, and all
that is needed to run applications. When the Web garden mode is enabled, the
ASP.NET ISAPI launches as many worker processes as there are CPUs, each a
full clone of the next (and each affinitized with the corresponding CPU). To
balance the workload, incoming requests are partitioned among running
processes in a round-robin manner. Worker processes get recycled as in the
single processor case. Note that ASP.NET inherits any CPU usage restriction
from the operating system and doesn't include any custom semantics for
doing this.

All in all, the Web garden model is not necessarily a big win for all
applications. The more stateful applications are, the more they risk to pay in
terms of real performance. Working data is stored in blocks of shared memory
so that any changes entered by a process are immediately visible to others.
However, for the time it takes to service a request, working data is copied in
the context of the process. Each worker process, therefore, will handle its own

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copy of working data, and the more stateful the application, the higher the
cost in performance. In this context, careful and savvy application
benchmarking is an absolute must.

Changes made to the section of the configuration file are effective only after
IIS is restarted. In IIS 6, Web gardening parameters are stored in the IIS
metabase; the webGarden and cpuMask attributes are ignored.

• What is view state?.where it stored?.can we disable it?

The web is state-less protocol, so the page gets instantiated, executed, rendered and
then disposed on every round trip to the server. The developers code to add
"statefulness" to the page by using Server-side storage for the state or posting the page
to itself. When require to persist and read the data in control on webform, developer had
to read the values and store them in hidden variable (in the form), which were then used
to restore the values. With advent of .NET framework, ASP.NET came up with ViewState
mechanism, which tracks the data values of server controls on ASP.NET webform. In
effect,ViewState can be viewed as "hidden variable managed by ASP.NET framework!".
When ASP.NET page is executed, data values from all server controls on page are
collected and encoded as single string, which then assigned to page's hidden atrribute "<
input type=hidden >", that is part of page sent to the client.

ViewState value is temporarily saved in the client's browser.ViewState can be disabled

for a single control, for an entire page orfor an entire web application. The syntax is:

Disable ViewState for control (Datagrid in this example)

< asp:datagrid EnableViewState="false" ... / >

Disable ViewState for a page, using Page directive

< %@ Page EnableViewState="False" ... % >

Disable ViewState for application through entry in web.config

< Pages EnableViewState="false" ... / >

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