MVC Pattern

ASP.NET MVC is a part of the ASP.NET Web application framework. It is one of the two different programming models you can use to create ASP.NET Web applications,the other being ASP.NET Web Forms.
An MVC Application is designed and implemented using the following three attributes



• Model: The model contains the core information for an application. This includes the data and validation rules as well as data access and aggregation logic.
• View: The view encapsulates the presentation of the application, and in ASP.NET this is typically the HTML markup.
• Controller: The controller contains the control-flow logic. It interacts with the Model and Views to control the flow of information and execution of the application.
This separation of entity allows you to have nimbleness and flexibility in building and maintaining your application. For example, by separating the views, you can iterate on the appearance of your application without touching on any of the core business logic. You can also separate work by role, so that, for example designers can work on the views, while developers work on the model.

ASP.NET Page Life Cycle

When an ASP.NET page runs, the page goes through a life cycle in which it performs a series of processing steps. These include initialization, instantiating controls, restoring and maintaining state, running event handler code, and rendering. It is important for you to understand the page life cycle so that you can write code at the appropriate life-cycle stage for the effect you intend.

Once the HTTP page handler class is fully identified, the ASP.NET runtime calls the handler's ProcessRequest to start the process. This implementation begins by calling the method FrameworkInitialize(), which builds the control trees for the page. This is a protected and virtual member of TemplateControl class, class from which page itself derives.

Next the processRequest() makes page transits various phases: initialization, loading of viewstate and postback data, loading of page's user code and execution postback server-side events. Then page enters in render mode, the viewstate is updated and HTML generated is sent to the output console. Finally page is unloaded and request is considered completely served.

Stages and corresponding events in the life cycle of the ASP.NET page cycle:



Stage Events/Method
Page Initialization Page_Init
View State Loading LoadViewState
Postback data processing LoadPostData
Page Loading Page_Load
PostBack Change Notification RaisePostDataChangedEvent
PostBack Event Handling RaisePostBackEvent
Page Pre Rendering Phase Page_PreRender
View State Saving SaveViewState
Page Rendering Page_Render
Page Unloading Page_UnLoad

Some of the events listed above are not visible at the page level. It will be visible if you happen to write server controls and write a class that is derived from page.

Page Execution Stages

The first stage in the page life cycle is initialization. This is fired after the page's control tree has been successfully created. All the controls that are statically declared in the .aspx file will be initialized with the default values. Controls can use this event to initialize some of the settings that can be used throughout the lifetime of the incoming web request. Viewstate information will not be available at this stage.

After initialization, page framework loads the view state for the page. Viewstate is a collection of name/value pairs, where control's and page itself store information that is persistent among web requests. It contains the state of the controls the last time the page was processed on the server. By overriding LoadViewState() method, component developer can understand how viewstate is restored.
Once viewstate is restored, control will be updated with the client side changes. It loads the posted data values. The PostBackData event gives control a chance to update their state that reflects the state of the HTML element on the client.

At the end of the posted data changes event, controls will be reflected with changes done on the client. At this point, load event is fired.

Key event in the life cycle is when the server-side code associated with an event triggered on the client. When the user clicks on the button, the page posts back. Page framework calls the RaisePostBackEvent. This event looks up for the event handler and run the associated delegate.

After PostBack event, page prepares for rendering. PreRender event is called. This is the place where user can do the update operations before the viewstate is stored and output is rendered. Next stage is saving view state, all the values of the controls will be saved to their own viewstate collection. The resultant viewstate is serialized, hashed, base24 encoded and associated with the _viewstate hidden field.

Next the render method is called. This method takes the HtmlWriter object and uses it to accumulate all HTML text to be generated for the control. For each control the page calls the render method and caches the HTML output. The rendering mechanism for the control can be altered by overriding this render method.

The final stage of the life cycle is unload event. This is called just before the page object is dismissed. In this event, you can release critical resources you have such as database connections, files, graphical objects etc. After this event browser receives the HTTP response packet and displays the page.