Programmatically starting an HTTP server in C#?

Question

I\'m a C#, ASP.NET newbie.

Let\'s say I have an existing C# project (from a \"Console Application\" template; I work with Visual Studio). I want to be able to start a si

Answer 1

You could host the ASP.NET runtime inside a console application. Here's an example:

public class SimpleHost : MarshalByRefObject
{
    public void ProcessRequest(string page, string query, TextWriter writer)
    {
        SimpleWorkerRequest swr = new SimpleWorkerRequest(page, query, writer);
        HttpRuntime.ProcessRequest(swr);
    }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // TODO: Check to see if a given argument has been passed on the command-line

        SimpleHost host = (SimpleHost)ApplicationHost.CreateApplicationHost(
            typeof(SimpleHost), "/", Directory.GetCurrentDirectory());

        HttpListener listener = new HttpListener();
        listener.Prefixes.Add("http://localhost:9999/");
        listener.Start();
        Console.WriteLine("Listening for requests on http://localhost:9999/");

        while (true)
        {
            HttpListenerContext context = listener.GetContext();
            string page = context.Request.Url.LocalPath.Replace("/", "");
            string query = context.Request.Url.Query.Replace("?", "");
            using (var writer = new StreamWriter(context.Response.OutputStream))
            {
                host.ProcessRequest(page, query, writer);
            }
            context.Response.Close();
        }

    }
}

You might get a TypeLoadException when you run this program. You have to create a bin subdirectory to your current directory and move a copy of the executable to it. This is because the ASP.NET runtime will look for a bin subdirectory. Another option is to put SimpleHost into a separate assembly which you deploy into the GAC.