ASP.NET in a Nutshell

Name

HttpServerUtility

Synopsis

This class provides helper methods and is available through the built-in Server object. It provides the useful UrlEncode() method, which converts a string into a form suitable for use as a query string variable, and the HtmlEncode() method, which converts nonlegal HTML characters in a string into the equivalent HTML entity (i.e., "<" is converted to <) so they can be displayed on a page. Some ASP.NET web controls (like buttons) do not require this conversion, but label controls do. You may need to use the HtmlEncode() method manually if you bind a field with URL information from a database.

The HttpServerUtility class provides the MapPath() method, which takes a string representing a virtual path and returns the real (physical) path (for example, it could convert "/myapp/index.html" to "E:\Inetpub\wwwroot\myapp\index.html"). It also provides a CreateObject() method for instantiating a COM object by using its ProgID (i.e., objInfo=Server.CreateObject ("MSWC.MyInfo")) and the two flow control methods Execute() and Transfer(). The Execute() method, which runs the script in a separate ASP.NET page and then returns control to the current page, is rarely used in class-based ASP.NET programming. The Transfer() method halts the execution of the current page and transfers execution to the specified page. It is similar to the HttpResponse.Redirect() method, but does not require a roundtrip to the client and back and cannot transfer execution to a page on ...