Why does ASP.NET webforms need the Runat=”Server” attribute?

by

I’ve always believed it was there more for the understanding that you can mix ASP.NET tags and HTML Tags, and HTML Tags have the option of either being runat="server" or not. It doesn’t hurt anything to leave the tag in, and it causes a compiler error to take it out. The more things you imply about web language, the less easy it is for a budding programmer to come in and learn it. That’s as good a reason as any to be verbose about tag attributes.

This conversation was had on Mike Schinkel’s Blog between himself and Talbot Crowell of Microsoft National Services. The relevant information is below (first paragraph paraphrased due to grammatical errors in source):

[…] but the importance of <runat="server"> is more for consistency and extensibility.

If the developer has to mark some tags (viz. <asp: />) for the ASP.NET Engine to ignore, then there’s also the potential issue of namespace collisions among tags and future enhancements. By requiring the <runat="server"> attribute, this is negated.

It continues:

If <runat=client> was required for all client-side tags, the parser would need to parse all tags and strip out the <runat=client> part.

He continues:

Currently,
If my guess is correct, the parser
simply ignores all text (tags or no
tags) unless it is a tag with the
runat=server attribute or a “<%”
prefix or ssi “<!– #include… (…)
Also, since ASP.NET is designed to
allow separation of the web designers
(foo.aspx) from the web developers
(foo.aspx.vb), the web designers can
use their own web designer tools to
place HTML and client-side JavaScript
without having to know about ASP.NET
specific tags or attributes.

More Related Contents:

  1. ASP.Net Master Page and File path issues
  2. Regex Expression for asp.net [duplicate]
  3. Meaning
  4. Request format is unrecognized for URL unexpectedly ending in
  5. Hidden Features of ASP.NET [closed]
  6. ASP.NET Windows Authentication logout
  7. Error – SqlDateTime overflow. Must be between 1/1/1753 12:00:00 AM and 12/31/9999 11:59:59 PM
  8. Remove HTML or ASPX Extension
  9. ASP.NET Excel export encoding problem
  10. How to make a section of an image a clickable link
  11. Get a list of all active sessions in ASP.NET
  12. How do I fix the “compilerVersion” IIS error?
  13. How to add a RequiredFieldValidator to DropDownList control?
  14. It has a DefiningQuery but no InsertFunction element… err
  15. How to disable caching of single page application HTML file served through IIS?
  16. how SameSite attribute added to my Asp.net_SessionID cookie automatically?
  17. What is Kestrel (vs IIS / Express)
  18. curl Request with ASP.NET
  19. On postback, how can I add a error message to validation summary?
  20. Linq Orderby random ThreadSafe for use in ASP.NET
  21. Stop Visual Studio from launching a new browser window when starting debug?
  22. Render ASP.NET TextBox as HTML5 Input type “Number”
  23. How do I make a Textbox Postback on KeyUp?
  24. How to resolve Error : Showing a modal dialog box or form when the application is not running in UserInteractive mode is not a valid operation
  25. Difference Between ViewResult() and ActionResult()
  26. Session would not retain values and always return null
  27. Forms authentication: disable redirect to the login page
  28. ASP.Net Core 1.0 RC2 : What are LAUNCHER_PATH and LAUNCHER_ARGS mentioned in web.config?
  29. ASP.NET core 2.1 session
  30. Enable/disable asp.net validator controls within a specific “ValidationGroup” with jQuery?

Leave a Comment