Yes

&gt; A controller that returns void will produce an EmptyResult.

Taken from 

[The Life And Times of an ASP.NET MVC Controller][1]


  [1]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd695917.aspx

Seems so, check the [source code of ControllerActionInvoker.cs][1]. I haven&#39;t verified it, but logic tells me that a void return will set actionReturnValue to null, so an EmptyResult is generated. This is the most recent source code, haven&#39;t checked the source for ASP.net MVC 1.0.

    protected virtual ActionResult CreateActionResult(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, object actionReturnValue) {
        if (actionReturnValue == null) {
            return new EmptyResult();
        }

        ActionResult actionResult = (actionReturnValue as ActionResult) ??
            new ContentResult { Content = Convert.ToString(actionReturnValue, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) };
        return actionResult;
    }


  [1]: http://aspnet.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/view/23011#266452

It won&#39;t &quot;convert&quot; it, but the two would have the same effect as far as the user is concern. A request would be sent, but no response would come back to the client.

Personally, I think you need to send some response back to the client, even if you just write a continue or success directly to the response stream. Even a JSON `true`, or an empty XML document is better than nothing at all.

I know this is a [duplicate][1], however, the Grails world has moved on considerably since that question was asked more than a year ago, as has the IDE support in Eclipse, so please don&#39;t just blindly close it.  

I thought the answer was yes and have embarked on a new project with [Grails 1.2.0][2] and have flirted with the Groovy/Grails bits of the [STS Eclipse Integration][3].

I think the question deserves revisiting after a year of Grails evolution, when the answer was definitely mixed.

So, as an experienced Java web developer I have these questions and would appreciate *my assumptions* being challenged:

 - Is Grails now worth it vs. Ruby or roll your own?
 - Has it overcome its buggy start?  
 - Does it really confer rapid development benefits?  *(I admit I am struggling now I am past the extensive baseline configuration to make my bespoke app which is not list and page oriented)*
 - Does it perform for real world production apps?  *(It feels heavy)*
 - Is the Eclipse plug-in better than it was and fit for purpose? *(I think not yet)*

Thanks

**EDIT:**
I am learning as I go and I have a couple of significant gripes to make about living with the framework - rather than framework capabilities themselves.  I am adding these because I think they should be considerations and are based on my experience and opinion, and may help someone who is trying to decide whether to go grails.  I may also be showing my lack of experience with the framework, so none of this is meant as out and out criticisms.  I am an experienced developer and this is what I have found:  

**Debugging is really hard**.  In fact it is almost impossible, especially as a beginner in the framework, which is when you need your trusty debugger friend the most.  I have spent way more time than I ought to tracking down problems of syntactical errors in some part of the code to do with referring to domain fields which cause silent failures somewhere in the stack.

**Logging is frankly awful**.  You have two modes, &quot;nothing useful&quot; and &quot;an inordinate amount of useless stuff&quot;. My debug log was 128Mb after a single page request and contains nothing about my error.  The whole issue of logging needs reconsideration in the framework in my opinion.

**The STS Eclipse IDE is of marginal value**.  Other than syntax hilighting it is not much use.  You can&#39;t debug the code so it is a glorified editor.  The code hints are patchy and there is no GSP support at all as far as I can see.  It also is the slowest Eclipse plug-in I have on my desktop - by about 2 minutes to start up.  It is shockingly slow.  I have reverted to a text editor (which you&#39;ll notice all the online tutorial videos do too) and some custom syntax hilighting.

**I have some serious concerns about performance**.  A bit too early to say, but I am already finding myself tweaking the database because of hibernate.  Perhaps that&#39;s to be expected, but I am really having to keep my domain model simple for the conventions to yield performant queries.

And one last one, the convention that your logical domain model and your physical database model should be identical is not a smart default and unlikely ever to be the case in the real world.  I know you can separate the two, but it creates a degree of complexity which I think could be avoided if the conventions were extended.  There is inadequate documentation about composition and [what you need to do to make it work in practice][4].  


  [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/397228/is-grails-worth-it
  [2]: http://www.grails.org/1.2+Release+Notes
  [3]: http://www.grails.org/STS+Integration
  [4]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2123871/how-do-i-save-a-composite-field-value-in-grails-gsp/

Is Grails (now) worth it?

I am attempting to merge something like this in my SQL Server database:

&lt;pre&gt;[TicketID], [Person]
 T0001       Alice
 T0001       Bob
 T0002       Catherine
 T0002       Doug
 T0003       Elaine&lt;/pre&gt;

Into this:

&lt;pre&gt;[TicketID], [People]
 T0001       Alice, Bob
 T0002       Catherine, Doug
 T0003       Elaine&lt;/pre&gt;

I need to do this in both SQL Server and Oracle.

I have found the function `GROUP_CONCAT` for MySQL that does exactly what I need here, but MySQL is not an option here.

**EDIT:** Test bench:

    DECLARE @Tickets TABLE (
        [TicketID] char(5) NOT NULL,
        [Person] nvarchar(15) NOT NULL
    )
    
    INSERT INTO @Tickets VALUES
        (&#39;T0001&#39;, &#39;Alice&#39;),
        (&#39;T0001&#39;, &#39;Bob&#39;),
        (&#39;T0002&#39;, &#39;Catherine&#39;),
        (&#39;T0002&#39;, &#39;Doug&#39;),
        (&#39;T0003&#39;, &#39;Elaine&#39;)
    
    SELECT * FROM @Tickets

Can I Comma Delimit Multiple Rows Into One Column?

If I have the following controller action...

    public void DoSomething()
    {
    }

will the framework actually convert it to this?

    public EmptyResult DoSomething()
    {
      return new EmptyResult();
    }


ASP.Net MVC Controller Actions that return void

If I have the following controller action...
<pre><code class="hljs language-csharp">public void DoSomething()
{
}
</code></pre>
will the framework actually convert it to this?
<pre><code class="hljs language-csharp">public EmptyResult DoSomething()
{
 return new EmptyResult();
}
</code></pre>

An ASP.NET web app running on IIS6 periodically shoots the CPU up to 100%. It&#39;s the W3WP that&#39;s responsible for nearly all CPU usage during these episodes. The CPU stays pinned at 100% anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour. 

This is on a staging server and the site is only getting very light traffic from testers at this point. 

We&#39;ve running ANTS profiler on the server, but it&#39;s been unenlightening. 

Where can we start finding out what&#39;s causing these episodes and what code is keeping the CPU busy during all that time?

W3WP.EXE using 100% CPU - where to start?

In order to comply with [HIPAA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_and_Accountability_Act) regulations, we need to send email from an external site (outside the firewall) to an internal Exchange server (inside the firewall). Our Exchange admins tell us we need to use TLS encryption to send mail from the web server to the email server.

I&#39;ve never used TLS before and I&#39;m not very familiar with it. Searching on Google as brought up numerous paid-for-use libraries. Is there anything native to .NET that will accomplish this? If so, how do I configure it? If not, is there something free or open source?

Current Configuration:

* ASP.NET C# Web Application
* 2.0 Framework
* Using System.Net.Mail to send email and attachments via SMTP
* IIS 6.0

C# ASP.NET Send Email via TLS

I have two ASP.NET Web projects (ProjectA and ProjectB). When class in ProjectA is instantiating a class of ProjectB which uses a resource file Blah.resx, I get this error:   

&gt; An exception of type &#39;System.Resources.MissingManifestResourceException&#39; occurred in mscorlib.dll but was not handled in user code.
&gt; 
&gt; Could not find any resources appropriate for the specified culture or the neutral culture.  Make sure &quot;Resources.Blah.resources&quot; was correctly embedded or linked into assembly &quot;App_GlobalResources.sn_flri6&quot; at compile time, or that all the satellite assemblies required are loadable and fully signed.

Whats causing this? 

There is an article on Microsoft&#39;s site about this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318603  which suggests: 

&gt; To resolve this problem, move all of the other class definitions so that they appear after the form&#39;s class definition.

This is a solution for Windows Forms project, I&#39;m not sure if that also applies to Web projects. 





Could not find any resources appropriate for the specified culture or the neutral culture

It&#39;s been [discussed before on Stack Overflow][1] that we should prefer attributes to [marker interfaces][wikipedia] (interfaces without any members). [Interface Design article on MSDN][2] asserts this recommendation too:

&gt; ### Avoid using marker interfaces (interfaces with no members).  
&gt; Custom attributes provide a way to mark a type. For more information about custom attributes, see Writing Custom Attributes. Custom attributes are preferred when you can defer checking for the attribute until the code is executing. If your scenario requires compile-time checking, you cannot comply with this guideline.


There&#39;s even an [FxCop rule][fxcop] to enforce this recommendation:

&gt; ### Avoid empty interfaces
&gt; Interfaces define members that provide a behavior or usage contract. The functionality described by the interface can be adopted by any type, regardless of where the type appears in the inheritance hierarchy. A type implements an interface by providing implementations for the interface&#39;s members. An empty interface does not define any members, and as such, does not define a contract that can be implemented.  
&gt;
&gt;If your design includes empty interfaces that types are expected to implement, you are probably using an interface as a marker, or a way of identifying a group of types. If this identification will occur at runtime, the correct way to accomplish this is to use a custom attribute. Use the presence or absence of the attribute, or the attribute&#39;s properties, to identify the target types. If the identification must occur at compile time, then using an empty interface is acceptable.


The article states only one reason that you might ignore the warning: when you need compile time identification for types. (This is consistent with the Interface Design article).
&gt; It is safe to exclude a warning from this rule if the interface is used to identify a set of types at compile-time.


Here comes the actual question: Microsoft didn&#39;t conform to their own recommendation in the design of the Framework Class Library (at least in a couple cases): [IRequiresSessionState interface][3] and [IReadOnlySessionState interface][4]. These interfaces are used by the ASP.NET framework to check whether it should enable session state for a specific handler or not. Obviously, it&#39;s not used for compile time identification of types. Why they didn&#39;t do that? I can think of two potential reasons:

1. Micro-optimization: Checking whether an object implements an interface (`obj is IReadOnlySessionState`) is faster than using reflection to check for an attribute (`type.IsDefined(typeof(SessionStateAttribute), true)`). The difference is negligible most of the time but it might actually matter for a performance-critical code path in the ASP.NET runtime. However, there are workarounds they could have used like caching the result for each handler type. The interesting thing is that ASMX Web services (which are subject to similar performance characteristics) actually use the [`EnableSession` property][5] of the [`WebMethod` attribute][6] for this purpose. 

2. Implementing interfaces are potentially more likely to be supported than decorating types with attributes by third-party .NET languages. Since ASP.NET is designed to be language agnostic, and ASP.NET generates code for types (possibly in a third-party language with the help of [CodeDom][7]) that implement the said interfaces based on the `EnableSessionState` attribute of the [`&lt;%@ Page %&gt;` directive][8], it might make more sense to use interfaces instead of attributes.

**What are the persuasive reasons to use marker interfaces instead of attributes?**

Is this simply a (premature?) optimization or a tiny mistake in the framework design? (Do they think [reflection is a &quot;big monster with red eyes&quot;][joke]?) Thoughts?

[wikipedia]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marker_interface_pattern
[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2063841/interfaces-or-attributes-for-tagging-classes
[2]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229022.aspx
[fxcop]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182128(VS.80).aspx
[3]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.sessionstate.irequiressessionstate.aspx
[4]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.sessionstate.ireadonlysessionstate.aspx
[5]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.services.webmethodattribute.enablesession.aspx
[6]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.services.webmethodattribute.aspx
[7]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/y2k85ax6.aspx
[8]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ydy4x04a.aspx
[joke]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2063841/interfaces-or-attributes-for-tagging-classes/2063856#2063856

Compelling Reasons to Use Marker Interfaces Instead of Attributes

   My web application&#39;s home page has a **RememberMe** checkbox. If the user checks it, I willl store email-id and password in cookies. This is my code:

    if (this.ChkRememberme != null &amp;&amp; this.ChkRememberme.Checked == true)
       {
         HttpCookie cookie = new HttpCookie(TxtUserName.Text, TxtPassword.Text);
         cookie.Expires.AddYears(1);
         Response.Cookies.Add(cookie);
       }

What I want to know is:

 - Is it secure to store passwords in cookies? 
 - What is proper way of doing the same? 
 - What are the best practices in setting time for a cookie?
 
 



Is it secure to store passwords in cookies?

Can anyone tell me how can I submit values to Controller using ActionLink and POST method?&lt;br /&gt;
I don&#39;t want to use buttons.&lt;br /&gt;
I guess it has something with jquery.&lt;br /&gt;


ASP.NET MVC ActionLink and post method

I have a controller decorated with an AuthorizeAttribute. The controller contains several actions that all require authentication apart from one action that requires some custom authentication provided by CustomAuthorizeAttribute.

My question is once I&#39;ve added [Authorize] at the controller level can I override it (or remove it) with [CustomAuthorize] on just one action?  Or do I have to remove [Authorize] from the controller level and add it individually to every other action?

I&#39;m asking purely for convenience because I&#39;m lazy and don&#39;t want to decorate every action with the AuthorizeAttribute.

    [Authorize]
    public class MyController : Controller {

      //requires authentication
      public ViewResult Admin() {
        return View();
      }

      //... a lot more actions requiring authentication

      //requires custom authentication
      [CustomAuthorize]  //never invoked as already failed at controller level
      public ViewResult Home() {
        return View();
      }

    }

Overriding controller AuthorizeAttribute for just one action

I&#39;m getting a strange error on my webserver for seemingly every file but the .aspx files.

Here is an example. Just replace &#39;/robots.txt&#39; with any .jpg name or .gif or whatever and you&#39;ll get the idea:

&gt; The controller for path &#39;/robots.txt&#39;
&gt; was not found or does not implement
&gt; IController.

I&#39;m sure it&#39;s something to do with how I&#39;ve setup routing but I&#39;m not sure what exactly I need to do about it.

Also, this is a mixed MVC and WebForms site, if that makes a difference.

I&#39;m getting a &quot;Does not implement IController&quot; error on images and robots.txt in MVC2

I&#39;m having difficulty making IIS 7 correctly compress a Json result from ASP.NET MVC. I&#39;ve enabled static and dynamic compression in IIS. I can verify with Fiddler that normal text/html and similar records are compressed. Viewing the request, the accept-encoding gzip header is present. The response has the mimetype &quot;application/json&quot;, but is not compressed.

I&#39;ve identified that the issue appears to relate to the MimeType. When I include `mimeType=&quot;*/*&quot;`, I can see that the response is correctly gzipped. How can I get IIS to compress WITHOUT using a wildcard mimeType? I assume that this issue has something to do with the way that ASP.NET MVC generates content type headers.

The CPU usage is well below the dynamic throttling threshold. When I examine the trace logs from IIS, I can see that it fails to compress due to not finding a matching mime type.

    &lt;httpCompression directory=&quot;%SystemDrive%\inetpub\temp\IIS Temporary Compressed Files&quot; noCompressionForProxies=&quot;false&quot;&gt;
        &lt;scheme name=&quot;gzip&quot; dll=&quot;%Windir%\system32\inetsrv\gzip.dll&quot; /&gt;
        &lt;dynamicTypes&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;text/*&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;message/*&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;application/x-javascript&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;application/json&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
        &lt;/dynamicTypes&gt;
        &lt;staticTypes&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;text/*&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;message/*&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;application/x-javascript&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;application/atom+xml&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;application/xaml+xml&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
            &lt;add mimeType=&quot;application/json&quot; enabled=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;
        &lt;/staticTypes&gt;
    &lt;/httpCompression&gt;


Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Chris Arnold	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - asp.net	Martijn Laarman	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - asp.net	Michael Stum	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - asp.net	Jarrett Meyer	View Answer on Stackoverflow

ASP.Net MVC Controller Actions that return void

asp.net Problem Overview

asp.net Solutions

Solution 1 - asp.net

Solution 2 - asp.net

Solution 3 - asp.net

Can I Comma Delimit Multiple Rows Into One Column?

Is Grails (now) worth it?

Attributions