Get The Current Application Virtual Path in ASP.Net
asp.net, asp.net-mvc, iis, iis-7
Solution
You cannot access the absolute url of the current request inside Application_Start when running in integrated mode. You could access the virtual path name using `HostingEnvironment.ApplicationVirtualPath` but not an absolute url. Here's an article which explains a common workaround. As explained in the article you have 2 possibilities:
- Change your application code to not use the request context (recommended)
- Perform the initialization in `Application_BeginRequest` using a lock and a singleton to ensure that this initialization is performed only once for the entire lifetime of the AppDomain. Here's a similar thread discussing this second approach.
Problem
Inside the Application_Start of my Global.asax.cs, I am trying to get the current application path using: ``` var virtualPath = HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.GetLeftPart(UriPartial.Authority) + HttpRuntime.AppDomainAppVirtualPath; ``` This will return for example: `http://localhost:99/MySite/` I will then use this URL and do the following: ``` var pageToHit = virtualPath + Pages\MyOtherPage.aspx var client = new WebClient(); client.DownloadData(dummyPageUrl); ``` All this is fine when I run the project in IIS 6 or the Visual Studio built-in web server, however things go crazy in IIS 7 as I get a "System.Web.HttpException: Request is not available in this context". I am aware of this thread: Request is not available in this context However, I was wondering if anyone had any idea on how to do the above without changing the project to run in classic mode.