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Title:

ASP.NET HttpRequestValidationException

Author: Bob Swart
Posted: 8/19/2005 3:40:10 PM (GMT+1)
Content:

ASP.NET 1.1 has this nice "feature" of automatically validating the incoming Request (QueryString, Form and Cookies) to prevent script attacks. This new validation code will raise an HttpRequestValidationException, which will be raised before the OnInit itself is executed.
The problem I have with that, is the fact that the resulting error message is not very nice. And although I could define an error page, I'd much rather give the user a friendly reminder that HTML is not allowed (in comments below, for example).
Of course, I could turn the validation off, by specifying validateRequest="false" in the Page directive of my ASP.NET page, but I don't really want to do that...

It turned out that I only needed to make sure the Error event of my ASP.NET page was assigned before the validation is raising an exception. To do this, I had to declare a constructor, and set the Error event manually (since the assignment in the InitializeComponents would be too late).

In effect, I ended up with the following code:

constructor TWebForm1.Create;
begin
inherited;
Include(Self.Error, Self.TWebForm1_Error)
end;

And then in the Error handler we can clear the error and set the StatusCode back to 200, as follows:

procedure TWebForm1.TWebForm1_Error(sender: System.Object; e: System.EventArgs);
begin
if (Server.GetLastError.GetBaseException is System.Web.HttpRequestValidationException) then
begin
Response.Write('Sorry, no HTML allowed...');
Response.StatusCode := 200;
Response.&End
end
end;

This still results in an error page (a bit nicer), and not my original page. So, I had to add a little trick to it, redirecting to the original page with an additional queryfield, so I can give a nice error message (and still show the original page).

procedure TWebForm1.TWebForm1_Error(sender: System.Object; e: System.EventArgs);
begin
if (Server.GetLastError.GetBaseException is System.Web.HttpRequestValidationException) then
begin
Response.StatusCode := 200;
Response.Redirect(Request.Url.ToString + '?Ex=42', True)
end
end;

In the Page_Load, I can now check for the Request.Params['Ex'] to see if an error was raised, so I should give the user a friendly error message instead.

if Request.Params['Ex'] = '42' then
lbError.Text := 'Sorry, no HTML allowed here!';

Go ahead and try to enter HTML in the comment box below. It shouldn't work, but at least I give you a friendly reminder ;-)

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4 Comments

AuthorPostedComments
Daniel "sakura" Wischnewski05/08/20 14:09:55You should return the text *entered* anyway, so one just needs to remove the HTML tags without retyping everything else ;-)
Peter Morris05/08/20 22:39:49I find the real error message you use "Sorry. no HTML allowed here!" Much friendlier than the one you suggest in your blog entry "Sorry, not HTML allowed" :-) A good tip, thanks!
ali movahedi 08/03/06 04:42:04I want to make a website by delphi.net with asp.net and I dont now any thing pleas help me thank you
Bob Swart 08/03/06 11:48:18Ali - check out some of my ASP.NET 1.1 Web Development books to get started. See http://www.lulu.com/content/1157450 for example


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