HTTP handlers in ASP DOT NET

Question

What are HTTP handlers in ASP.NET?

Answer 1

HTTP handlers are used to handle user requests for the Web application resources. They are a backbone of a request-response model of the Web applications. There is the specific event handler to handle a request for every user request type and send back a corresponding response object.

Every user requests the IIS Web server flows by the HTTP pipeline that refers to the series of components (HTTP handlers and HTTP modules) to process a request. HTTP modules act as the filters to process a request as it passes the HTTP pipeline. Request, after passing by the HTTP modules, is assigned to the HTTP handler which determines a response of a server to a user request. Response then passes through a HTTP modules one time again and then sent back to a user.

We can define the HTTP handlers in a <httpHandlers> element of the configuration file. <add> element tag is used to the add new handlers and <remove> element tag is used to remove the existing handlers. To create the HTTP handler, we need to define the class which implements a IHttpHandler interface.