Develop Reference

Image src pointing on a file outside my project folder in WEB FORM

I'm looking to do this exactly :
set src property in view to a url outside of the MVC3 project
Fine but in web form ?
I tried simply putting the path as a string into the src of the image :
<asp:Image ID="imgInside" runat="server" src="\\serverName.com\dfs$\APPL-ADM\FichiersDev\MandatsInfo\SAR220-2020_1.jpg" >
Obviously not working, so I made src pointe on this function I wrote like so :
<asp:Image runat="server" Width="160px" src='<%# getImage(Container.DataItem as MandatMobile.DAL.MandatsEcoleCC_Result) %>' ></asp:Image>
In back end C# :
protected Byte[] getImage(MandatsEcoleCC_Result p)
{
using (MandatsDatas db = new MandatsDatas())
{
GROUPE_ARTICLE g = db.GROUPE_ARTICLE.First(t => t.ID_GROUPE == p.ID_GROUPE);
if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(g.image))
return null;
FileStream fs = null;
try
{
fs = new FileStream(#"\\serverName.com\dfs$\APPL-ADM\FichiersDev\MandatsInfo\" + g.MANDAT.NO_MANDAT + g.image, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
}
catch
{
}
BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(fs);
return br.ReadBytes((int)fs.Length);
}
}
Still not working, I've been searching but I just can't figure it out and I'm stuck trying all sorts of non-sens.

Well, you confusing two things:
Code behind:
Anytime you run code that uses a file, then you writing 100% server side code. As such any file path is a proper windows FULL qualified path name. It has ZERO ZERO to do with web URL's.
Read the above a dozen times. Your code does not use URL path names - end of story.
Web site:
Anytime you reference a file, picture, script files or anything? You are and MUST use a URL based on the path names of the web site, and more so path names that resolve to the folders that represent the site.
root:
\Pictures (say a folder in the web site folder list with pictures.
So, a src, or ANY URL in the web site? They do NOT use windows path names like code behind.
So, if there is a cat.png picture in folder pictures? When your URL will be this:
www.mywebsite.com/Pictures/cat.png
If you write code to read/load/see/use that cat.png picture? Then you convert in code from that extenral URL to a full qualifed standard windows path name (with back slaches).
So, in code behind if you want to read, or do somthing with the above file?
You use
dim strFile as string
strFile = Server.MapPath("www.mywebsite.com/Pictures/cat.png")
map path will now return a full qualified windows server path
eg:
c:\inetpub\wwwrootmysite\Pictures\cat.png
Ok, so now we realize that to use a VALID link to pictures on teh web site, we MUST use a valid URL.
So, what happens if say we have a network connected HUGE massive say SAN drive or some other huge server on the network that has huge storage, and has our pictures in that site?
Say:
\SANSERVER\WebPictures\cat.png
Well, obviosity that file folder can't be used in a URL. ONLY URL's in the web folder path name can be used. And this is a good thing. Since when I go to www.amazon.com it is a VERY good thing I can't type in a URL to get at their intenral accouting files server and steal all the credit card information of all customers.
So, now, how can I get at that cat.png, and turn it into a valid URL?
There are two ways:
One:
You make the decision to expose and INCLUDE the above path name as part of the web site. This is typical done with what is called a virutal folder. You need IIS, and during development with IIS + Visual Studio, it is a "pain" to setup such path names. But if you have full version of IIS, then you can add the virutal folder to the web site though the IIS user interface tools.
So, you add a virutal folder called MyPictures, and it will be mapped to:
\SANSERVER\WebPictures\cat.png
So, now the web site URL becomes:
www.mycoolsite.com/MyPictures/cat.png
And in code if you do a server.map path, the above url will return this:
\SANSERVER\WebPictures\cat.png
Ok, next issue:
I don't want to expose that other folder to the web site. I don't want a valid URL, and I don't even want users to be able to type in say this:
www.mycoolsite.com/MyPictures/doggie.png
So, if you DO expose another folder or add a folder to the web site hiarchy, then users ARE FREE to type in a URL that will resolve to that other folder (but you are assumed to have added a virtual folder to the web site).
Now, with a valid URL resolution, then you can place markup code on teh web site, and provide valid full URL path names to the picture or whatever for the web site.
However, lets say for reason of security, I do NOT want that other server to be exposed to as a URL?
Well, it it is NOT exposed as a valid web URL folder, then you can NOT put in a valid URL - it that's simple.
However, that don't mean the code behind can't read/load/open that file on the server. In fact the web site code behind can often read any file on the server, and in fact read any file anyplace on the network that the web server is running. And as noted, code behind does not use URL
s, and does not use "forward" "/" for the file - but a plan jane old fashting fully qualfied windows path name.
Since the code behind can darn near read any file and do anything it wants?
Ok, then how can we get the code behind to dish out a file, or send that file to the web site?
Two simple ways:
Your code behind could read the cat.png file, and copy it to a folder that is part of the web server folder layout. Once one, then you can provide a valid URL. However, with a huge picture library, that would be pain full.
And in some cases the picture might come from a database row(s) that store pictures, and once again no valid path name exists for the web site.
So, what you can do is read the file in code behind and then "stream" the data directly to the web site.
When you steam contents from code behind, then you don't care nor even require a valid URL, because the code behind is pumping out the object data (in this case a picture cat.png) directly to the web browser. So this is often done because your pictures don't even exist in a file, or in fact it not practical to include that folder in the web site folder list for reasons of security.
As noted, if this was/is just a folder of pictures OUTSIDE of the folders for the web site? Well then 99% of the time, then adding a mapped folder (a virtual folder) to the web site that points to the picture hard drive is common done, and is practical.
however, you might have a HUGE library of pictures on a big file server, and you have a database that has key words for searching the pictures, and the database row stores a valid path name to the hard drive/server that has all the pictures in a Hodge podge folder hierarchy that is not practical to expose as web based urls.
So, how to stream a file?
You code is close, but you need to include additional information. And unfortantly the server can't stream the file down as 100% binary format.
So, say we drag + drop a image control onto the form. You have this:
<asp:Image ID="Image1" runat="server" />
So, now in code behind to stream + set the picture to a picture on the hard drive?
You can use this:
Dim strFile As String = "c:\Test4\pcards.bmp"
Me.Image1.ImageUrl = Gimage2(strFile)
Now of course the URL path name to the above Test4 folder does not exist.
Gimage2 - it just converts the file as a byte array, and then to a string coded as base64.
Function Gimage2(strPath As String) As String
Dim PicData As Byte() = Nothing
PicData = File.ReadAllBytes(strPath)
Dim ContentType As String = "image/" & Path.GetExtension(strPath)
Return "data:" & ContentType & ";base64," & Convert.ToBase64String(PicData, 0, PicData.Length)
End Function
So I spent some time with a long post. The reason is you attempted to use a URL with standard windows back slashes, and that means in your mind, you are using the concept of a windows full path name and MAJOR confusing that with a URL path name. Failure to make this distingishing will cause you years of pain and suffering. You must have BEYOND CRYSTAL clear this concpet of a URL and that of a file name in code behind. They are two VERY different things.
If that addtional folder is "ok" to expose to the web site? Then create a Virtural folder.
That means:
wwww.mycoolsite.com/MyPictures/dog.png
Could in fact point to ANY mapped folder on your server. And this means the web server will require permisions to that folder, and in most cases thus a user (or your code) can type in and use a full web path name to the picture.
However, as noted, for pdf documents and many other types of files, then it is out of the question to have a valid URL and a mapped folder. So you can use the 100% file based approach as per above, and read the file as bytes, and then stream + output the file to the browser.
You can even do a response.write and pump out the file directly to the browser, but then again you don't have much control as to where it will be. Do realize that pumping out a string as base 64 data as per above can and will cause some bloat and expansion in the size of the string sent to be rendered as a picture. So for a simple image - sure that's ok. But for a larger high quality high resolution image, then of course I don't recommend you send the picture as a base64 string due to the expansion that string will result in.

I ended up putting a fonction in another MVC project that works correctly to retrieve images.
So my src path point on an URL instead of a file on a server path.
src='https://NameOf_MVC_webSite.csdn.qc.ca/imageBank/ForMandat?name=' + (Container.DataItem as MandatMobile.DAL.MandatsEcoleCC_Result).image
Dirty solution using another deployed app that has a (better / easy to use / functional) framework
But this is not an "OK" solution

moved web form does not load

I'm a newbie at asp.net and I have asp.net application with nested master pages. (.Net 3.5) I had a web form at root directory and I moved it a folder which I created under root. From this point I started to get "cannot use a leading .. to exit above the top directory" error while that web form loading. I digged on web and I tried prefixes "~", "/", "../" but I'm nowhere. my code as follows.
<li>
Add New Staff
</li>
I tried to create one more web form under "Staff" directory, but this form also generates same error while loading. Appreciate for help.

if i am not wrong you are using double code in href. it should be like this depending on your folder structure.
Add New Staff
And
For anyone who has found this thread, addressing relative paths has always created arguments over what is correct or not.
Depending on where you use the path to be addressed, it will depend on how you address the path.
Generally :
. and ./ do the same thing, however you wouldn't use . with a file name. Otherwise you will have the browser requesting .filename.ext as a file from the server. The proper method would be ./filename.ext.
../ addresses the path up one level from the current folder. If you were in the path /cheese/crackers/yummy.html, and your link code asked for ../butter/spread.html in the document yummy.html, then you would be addressing the path /cheese/butter/spread.html, as far as the server was concerned.
/ will always address the root of the site.

In ASP.NET Web Form, we normally use HyperLink server control to create URL as mason said.
<asp:HyperLink runat="server" NavigateUrl="~/Staff/New_Staff.aspx" Text="Add New Staff"/>
If you do not want use it, you can manually prepend with <%= ResolveUrl("~/") %>.
Add New Staff

Create a Script bundle from multiple locations

Let's assume our app is offline, i.e. we can't use 3rd party CDNs thus we're creating our own.
I'd like to host all of the vendor scripts in a separate (Parent) web app and then include them in the bundles in several other MVC Apps.
e.g.
http://localhost/parentWeb/Scripts/jquery.js
http://localhost/parentWeb/Scripts/jquery-ui.js
http://localhost/parentWeb/Scripts/globalize.js
I'd like to include in the ASP.NET MVC App Website located in: http://localhost/parentWeb/childWeb
i.e. do something like this:
bundles.UseCdn = true;
bundles.Add(
new ScriptBundle(
"~/bundles/VendorScripts",
"http://localhost/parentWeb/Scripts/jquery.js",
"http://localhost/parentWeb/Scripts/jquery-ui.js",
"http://localhost/parentWeb/Scripts/globalize.js"));
...which of course isn't currently possible. Is there a good workaround?

You can't bundle external resources. If you think about it, it makes sense why you can't. It would require the bundler to actually download the resource and save it to the filesystem before it could work with it, and of course do it all asynchronously with some sort of fallback if the external resource couldn't be reached. And, then, it would have to do this on every page load because it can't check for lastmod (and therefore, know whether it actually needs to rebundle or not) without fetching the resource first.
If you use a CDN resource, the bundler merely prints the URL directly to the page; it doesn't make any modifications. Even then, it only lets you create a "bundle" of just that one URL, because 1) it wouldn't make sense to bundle multiple CDN resources since that would defeat the purpose of a CDN and 2) the bundle only exists in this scenario to provide a fallback if the CDN resource is unavailable. Otherwise, you would be served just as well by just hardcoding it to the page and not worrying about setting up a bundle at all.

I know this is an old topic, but I came here looking for an actual way to bundle CDN resources. From #Chris Pratt's answer, I understood it wasn't possible.
If you're wondering, I am working on optimizing an an existing project according to Google's Web Performance Best Practises which gives a low score when there are multiple script tags and a higher one when all scripts are bundled into a single script reference.
I needed a way to bundle all the CDN script resources as well as local resources in order. I worked on this github repo, which solved my problem.
With it, you build a bundle with a list of bundles, each containing a reference to the cdn resource, local resource to save to, and a Boolean indicating whether or not you want the bundle to be minified.
List<Bundle> jsBundles = new List<Bundle>();
jsBundles.Add(new Bundle("https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.1.0/jquery.min.js", #"~/jquery.min.js", Bundle.BundleType.JavaScript, false));
jsBundles.Add(new Bundle("https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.12.0/jquery-ui.min.js", #"~/jquery-ui.min.js", Bundle.BundleType.JavaScript, false));
jsBundles.Add(new Bundle(#"~/my-local-script.js", Bundle.BundleType.JavaScript, true));
To place on the page, you use
#jsBundles.Load();
This will process all bundles in the list, downloading content for bundles that have not been downloaded in the last 24 hours (It updates every 24 hours or when the web application restarts). All content downloaded will be placed in local files (where specified).
All content will be combined into the final result which will be spooled into the page in a script tag (or link tag for CSS).
The Load function also accepts a local File URL for the final script/css content. If specified, a tag with a src to the relative path for that local file will be given instead. E.g.
#jsBundles.Load("~/js/all-my-scripts.js");
The above statement will return something like:
<script src="~/js/all-my-scripts.js"></script>
An async attribute may be added to the script tag if the second parameter of the Load function is provided.
It also works on css cdn resources too. E.g.
List<Bundle> cssBundles = new List<Bundle>();
cssBundles.Add(new Bundle("https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.12.0/jquery-ui.min.css", #"~/jquery.ui.css", Bundle.BundleType.CSS, false));
cssBundles.Add(new Bundle(#"~/css/my-local-style.css", Bundle.BundleType.CSS, true));
#cssBundles.Load("~/css/all-my-styles.css");
This is for the benefit of those, who like me, came in here looking for a way to actually bundle CDN resources.

I have found a solution, which has nothing to do with CDN. Basically, granted the childWeb is hosted in the parentWeb's subdirectory, the following bundle configuration in the childWeb apps picks the file from the parentWeb and bundles them as usual:
bundles.Add(
new ScriptBundle(
"~/bundles/VendorScripts").Include(
"~/../Scripts/jquery.js",
"~/../Scripts/Scripts/jquery-ui.js",
"~/../Scripts/globalize.js"));
the important bit being: ~/../, which takes you one level up from the root location.

To use ScriptBundles with CDN resources, you need to use the overloaded constructor. Unfortunately you need to specify multiple ScriptBundles per file.
Here's a great blog post explaining things:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CDNsFailButYourScriptsDontHaveToFallbackFromCDNToLocalJQuery.aspx
And here's a code snippet:
bundles.UseCdn = true;
var bundle = new ScriptBundle("~/bundles/bundleNameHere", "//cdn.host.path/to/file");
// Path to the version of the file on your server (in case the CDN fails)
bundle.Include("~/../Scripts/path/to/file");
// JS expression to run, to test if CDN delivered the file or not
bundle.CdnFallbackExpression = "window.ValueYouExpectToBeTruthy";
bundles.Add(bundle);

The purpose of bundle is reduce the traffic of your web server where your web application hosted. using bundle the script files will not load in parallel. this is needed when you are using your local files.
but in case of cdn the files will load from cdn server so you don't have need to make bundle for cdn. you need bundle for local files only

How to add an download link to users in my project

In my project i will be having an link like
Download
I want the users to download files of different types. The file will be in the root folder. When i am clicking on the link it is displaying an error. This is the plugin to install in the chrome. If the user download this link and open then it will automatically add to the chrome.
How can i do this.
The file is not even downloading.

This isn't a valid path:
~/hello world.crx
The ~ character is for use server-side to denote the root of the application. Client-side it has no meaning. The browser doesn't know what the root of the application is (or what the application is at all), it's just sending requests to resources at addresses. And it doesn't know what to do with that address.
You'll need to either use some server-side logic to translate that path into a browser-useable path, or manually make it a relative or absolute path.
If the ASP.NET MVC Framework isn't translating this for you then you're probably using a version that requires a little more manual work for it. Try something like:
Download
(Note: This assumes the use of the Razor view engine. If you're not using that then you'll want to use whatever your view engine equivalent is.)

What you need to do is set up a directory online, where you can host the file.
I also see that in your aref you don't want to type the full path so denote it with a /hello_world.crx, but make sure that you've set up a base href:
<base href="http://yourdomain.com/something/">

Try renaming the file to remove any spaces e.g. "hello_world.crx" and then change the name in the link code to match.

if a webpage and the downloadable file is in the same location
(i.e)
SampleFolder->Download.html
SampleFolder->hello world.crx
then try the below
download
If the webpage and the downloadable file in different location
(i.e)
SampleFolder->Download.html
SampleFolder->Downloads->hello world.crx
then try the below
download

Reference file outside of Web site directory

How do I reference a file outside my web site's root directory?
For example my website is located at C:\dev\TestSite
I am using ASP.NET with XSP. The webapp will be deployed on Apache using mod_mono.
I have images in C:\images and I would like to do this:
<img src="C:\images\logo.gif"/>

Your img tag's src value is going to be sent to the client. You need to specify those paths relative to your document root. Your best bet is to set up a virtual folder (in IIS, alias is the apache equivalent) to point to the c:\images path and then change the mentioned tag src path as follows
<img src="/images/logo.gif" />
To do this in apache, you need an alias in your httpd.conf. The line looks like this
Alias /images c:/images
Here's the docs http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_alias.html#alias

While it might be possible to do this through some hacky method, it's not a good idea. Allowing the IIS account to access files/folders on the greater file system would be a big potential security hole.
The best way to accomplish this is to use IIS Virtual Directories. Put your content in folders dedicated to supporting the site, DO NOT make your entire C: drive a virtual directory.

I'm going to assume that C:\images\logo.gif is the path on the server, and not the path on the client.
The src attribute is interpreted by the html client (i.e. Internet Explorer). The client can't see anything outside of your web directory. In fact, the client can only see things inside your web directory if you've provided permission for them to do so. Thus, this isn't an ASP.NET issue, but an issue of how web clients have access to web servers... which is designed this way for security.
In order for your application to use these images, you've got a couple of options that immediately spring to mind - neither of which is ideal:
The ASP.NET code (in the codebehind) is going to need to go and grab the file, and serve it out in the html stream that is being served to the client, which is more a complex task than I suspect you are willing to embark on.
The ASP.NET code (using System.IO) is going to need to go and grab the file from it's home location in C:\images\logo.gif and copy it to a location that is accessible to the client - you could create a temporary directory, copy your image to it, serve it out, delete it, delete the directory.
Both of these are certainly hacks that should be avoided if possible, but if you're adamant that this is what you want to do, this will allow you to do it via your ASP.NET app.
The most ideal solution is to add C:\Images as a virtual directory to your document root, i.e. /ImageCentral - this way you can have images that are central to multiple websites stored in this directory, it can then be referenced by clients for any of the websites just by adding virtual directories to each of them pointing at the central images folder. As DaveSwersky points out, don't make any directories containing sensitive information virtual directories, the minute you add a virtual directory to an externally visible website, you're giving people free reign to any of the information in it.
Good luck

You can't do this from within the HTML code of your page. The HTML page can only reference web accessible content (in regards to images, CSS, javascript, etc). You could create a virtual directory that points to your images folder so that it becomes web accessible.
EDIT:
The apache way inside of your conf file.
Alias /images "C:/Images"
And a little walkthrough from some dude.