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URL Mapping In ASP.NET

Sometimes you as a developer feel that the actual folder structure should not be visible to the end user or you may want to hide query string in the URL from the users. .Net provides a way to accomplish this task by introducing a concept called URL mapping. In this tutorial I will explain the concept of URL mapping along with an example.

Let us start with the definition

"URL mapping is a technique by which displayed URL can be changed in the address bar"

Let us elaborate the concept with an example. Consider a webpage having a link "Beverages". When the user clicks on the link, page will navigate to

http://Yoursite/ProductsByCategory.aspx?CategoryID=1&CategoryName=Beverages

By using URL mapping developer can change the URL to

http://Yoursite/Beverages.aspx

In this way user gets the impression that he(or she) is browsing the page Beverages.aspx

Implementation

URL mapping is implemented in web.config file. Following steps should be taken to implement URL mapping

Add urlMappings tag in web.config file inside system.web tag.
Set enabled attribute of urlMappings tag to true.
Put add tag as a child tag of urlMappings.
Add url as an attribute of add tag. If we consider the example which I have mentioned earlier "~/Beverages.aspx" will be the value of url.
Add mappedUrl as another attribute of add tag.In the above example "~/ProductsByCategory.aspx?CategoryID=1&CategoryName=Beverages" will be the value of mappedUrl.

Code

<configuration>   …
  
	<system.web>		  
      …
        
		<urlMappings enabled="true">
			<add url="~/Beverages.aspx" mappedUrl="~/ProductsByCategory.aspx?CategoryID=1&CategoryName=Beverages" />
		</urlMappings>	   
       … 
  
	</system.web>
  …

</configuration>

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Monday, November 15, 2010

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