Create Forum application in asp.net

[thilinam]

Hi
I am implementing a discussion board as a phase of my project. When we visit a web site to see replies of a thread, the url of the page is something like http://forums.asp.net/t/1335371.aspx. Could anybody please let me know, what is the meaning of number 1335371 and how it is generated. and please give me a reference to learn more about that kind of website implementation.
Thank You....

[thilinam]

I found that number may be an ID of the thread in the database. It is generated due to url rewriting. Now I wand to know how to do it in my web site. Please Help me.

[sknake]

In the case of the example you gave they are using URL rewriting as you have discovered. Google "ASP.NET URL Rewriting" for articles on many ways to go about it. I believe you can get plugins for rewriting and I think the latest version(s) of IIS support it natively.

Here are a few references:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/02/26/tip-trick-url-rewriting-with-asp-net.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972974.aspx
http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/asp.net/a-complete-url-rewriting-solution-for-asp.net-2.0/

If the URL structure isn't as important you could use a query string, example:
http://www.mywebsite.com/forums/ViewThread.aspx?id=1234
Then you could parse the "id" from Request.QueryString[] and load the page from the database. Search engines favor the example you gave because it looks like an individual page. When you use a query string then all of your threads will have the same URL path with a different query string and it tends to confuse them a little.

[reach_shailshar]

hey!!!
don't worry its an simple process of server of reading a URL. u can also covert a URL into the numeric form manually.
let me explain it with an much brief eg:-
for http://www.orkut.com u can simply write 3512047966 in your address bar and the page redirect you to the login page of the website. this numeric no. is auto generated by the server to remove ambiguity from the database for similar type of pages.