Understanding routing in Global.asax (asp.net-mvc)

Question

In Global.asax what does the following signify?

 routes.IgnoreRoute(\"{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}\");     

Answer 1

An .axd file is a virtual file that is handled by an HTTP Handler. They are used for (amongst other things) delivering various resources to the webpage, such as automatically generated javascript for AJAX controls and the like.

As these are virtual files, you do not want the routing engine to try to map these requests to controllers. You need them to be executed directly by ASP.NET.

That is what the line achieves.