HTTP Pipeline Processing

HTTP Pipeline Processing

An HttpApplication, its modules, and its handler will only be used to process one request at a time. If multiple requests targeting the same application arrive simultaneously, multiple HttpApplication objects will be used. The HttpApplicationFactory and HttpHandlerFactory classes pool HttpApplication objects and HTTP handler objects, respectively, for efficiency's sake.

The pipeline uses an HttpContext object to represent each request/response pair. The object is passed to the HttpApplication, which in turn passes it to the handler. Each module can access the current HttpContext as well. The HttpContext object exposes properties representing the HTTP request and response messages, which are instances of the HttpRequest and HttpResponse classes, respectively. The HttpContext object also exposes properties representing security information and per-call, per-session, and per-application state.The ASP.NET HTTP pipeline is fully extensible. You can implement your own HTTP modules, handlers, and handler factories. You can also extend the behavior of the HttpApplication class.