BUG?: Can't use an Asterisk (*) as a character when requesting a URL (page) from ASP.NET January 26, '05 Comments [8] Posted in ASP.NET | DasBlog | HttpModule | Bugs Sponsored By File this in obscure. I'm trying to fix a bug filed against dasBlog where the guy has a Category in dasBlog called "WS-*" He filed a bug saying that the CategoryView doesn't work, presumably because it has an asterisk. Now, I KNOW asterisks are allowed in values of querystrings, so this seemed weird to me. Turns out he's using the UrlRewriting feature of DasBlog so he gets URLs like this: http://localhost/DasBlog/CategoryView,category,WS-*.aspx The idea is to fool search engines into thinking there are actual pages, instead of one page with an URL like: http://localhost/DasBlog/CategoryView.aspx?category=WS-* Here's where it gets weird. We use a thing called the UrlMappingModule to catch ALL requests (all the requests that are handled by ASP.NET) and then call app.Context.RewritePath(newPath) which routes, in this case, the request to CategoryView. However, if an asterisk (*) appears anywhere IN THE (purported) FILENAME, ala CategoryView,category,WS-*.aspx then ASP.NET never hears about it, the HttpModule's BeginRequest never fires and I can't do crap about it. All I see is an HTTP 400 Bad Request. So, without digging further, I can only assume that the ASPNET_ISAPI extension didn't think it was cool to pass the request on. Of course, when the * appears as a value int the QueryString, everything is cool. What other component/filter/module upstream might be slapping this request down? I'm not running any thing special on this development box. « IMAP vs. POP3 in Outlook 2003 | Blog Home | Internet access (and Skype) at 36000ft. ... » About Scott Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author. About Newsletter Sponsored By Hosting By