ASP.Net Application - .aspx Files

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.aspx files, also known as ASP.NET pages or Web Forms, are the meat and potatoes of an ASP.NET Web Application. These files contain the HTML tags, server controls, and code that present a user interface to your users, and process their requests (or call helper functions in business-tier components to do so). Like the global.asax file, .aspx files may either contain code directly or refer to a code-behind class that contains the code for that page. Note that the code-behind used, if any, must inherit from the Page class in the System.Web.UI namespace. We’ll discuss .aspx files in detail in Chapter 3.

.asmx Files

.asmx files are the files used to implement ASP.NET Web Services. These files contain the methods, marked with the WebMethod attribute, that will be exposed by your application as web services. Like global.asax and .aspx files, .asmx files may either contain code directly or refer to a code-behind class that implements the methods to be exposed as web services. Note that the code-behind used, if any, must inherit from the WebService class in the System.Web.Services namespace We’ll discuss .asmx files in detail in Chapter 4.

.ascx Files

.ascx files are used to implement what are known as ASP.NET user controls. User controls are a technique for code reuse that lies somewhere between the function of the #Include directive in classic ASP (which you can still use in ASP.NET, if you choose) and the function of custom ASP.NET Server Controls. User controls are made up of HTML tags, server controls, and code (or any combination of the above), and can be reused through a simple tag-based syntax. They have the advantages of being simpler to develop than custom server controls, as well as offering greater functionality than includes (such as the ability to expose properties and methods). We’ll discuss user controls further in Chapters 3 and 6.

This chapter is from ASP.NET in a Nutshell,  by G. Andrew Duthie. (O'Reilly, 2003, ISBN:  0596005202). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.