Custom ASP.NET Processing with HTTP Handlers

HTTP handlers are ASP.NET components that run when they are requested in a browser and that return dynamically created information. (An ASP.NET Web page is an example of one type of HTTP handler.) You can use HTTP handlers to create any type of process that needs to return information to users that is not an HTML page. This section describes how to create and register HTTP handlers and provides examples of a synchronous handler, an asynchronous handler, and a handler factory.

In This Section

• Introduction to HTTP Handlers

• How to: Register HTTP Handlers

• How to: Create Synchronous HTTP Handlers

• How to: Create an Asynchronous HTTP Handler

• How to: Create HTTP Handler Factories

Related Sections

• ASP.NET Life Cycle
  Provides information on the steps that occur as an ASP.NET Web application accepts requests and processes them.

• Extending ASP.NET Processing with HTTP Modules
  Provides information on extending ASP.NET processing using HTTP modules.