Asp.net-mvc – What does the Web.Config file do in the views folder of a MVC project

asp.net-mvcweb.config

I'm having some problems with deploying my application and while troubleshooting, I came across the Web.Config file in the Views folder. In an attempt to narrow down the possibilities of sources to my problem, I tried to find out the purpose of that ~Web.Config` file but can't really find much information.

So basically my questions are:

What does the Web.config file do in the Views folder of a MVC project?
Is it required?

In Asp.Net webforms, I believe that to use a separate web.config file in a folder, that folder has to be set as a virtual folder in IIS. Is this the case in MVC (i.e. does the Views folder need to be configured as a virtual folder)?

Best Answer

No, you do not need to configure a virtual folder because of this extra web.config file.

The web.config file exists in the Views folders to prevent access to your views by any means other than your controller. In the MVC design pattern, controllers are supposed to route requests and return a rendered view to the calling client.

In other words, your view at www.mydomain.com/MySuperController/AwesomeAction1/SweetPage.aspx should not be directly accessible.

If you peek at the web.config file it actually registers the HttpNotFoundHandler to all paths and verbs:

<add path="*" verb="*" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler"/>

Or, in IIS 7 it might look like

<add name="BlockViewHandler" path="*.aspx" verb="*" 
    preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler"/>

Related Solutions

Asp.net-mvc – Compile Views in ASP.NET MVC

From the readme word doc for RC1 (not indexed by google)

ASP.NET Compiler Post-Build Step

Currently, errors within a view file are not detected until run time. To let you detect these errors at compile time, ASP.NET MVC projects now include an MvcBuildViews property, which is disabled by default. To enable this property, open the project file and set the MvcBuildViews property to true, as shown in the following example:

<Project ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>
  </PropertyGroup>

Note Enabling this feature adds some overhead to the build time.

You can update projects that were created with previous releases of MVC to include build-time validation of views by performing the following steps:

Open the project file in a text editor.
Add the following element under the top-most <PropertyGroup> element: <MvcBuildViews>true</MvcBuildViews>
At the end of the project file, uncomment the <Target Name="AfterBuild"> element and modify it to match the following:

<Target Name="AfterBuild" Condition="'$(MvcBuildViews)'=='true'">
    <AspNetCompiler VirtualPath="temp" PhysicalPath="$(ProjectDir)\..\$(ProjectName)" />
</Target>

Asp.net-mvc – ASP.NET MVC and two Web.config files

The settings should go into the web.config at the application root. The web.config in the views folder is there to block direct access to the view aspx pages which should only get served through controllers.

(And: I tried creating application settings on my machine, with ASP.NET MVC RC 1 installed, using a newly created mvc web application. They get added to the web.config at the application root.)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Asp.net-mvc – Compile Views in ASP.NET MVC

Asp.net-mvc – ASP.NET MVC and two Web.config files

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