How do you integrate Classic ASP with ASP.NET application?

Question

I have an old Classic ASP application. Now the users wants to have some enhancements on it. I have no working experience in Classic ASP. I want to do the enhancement in ASP.NET which i am very fluent. Can i do it?

All i wanted is provide a link in ASP page and once the user clicks on that link, i want to open an ASPX page as a popup window. In the new ASPX page, the user does some User/Group management thing like creating a group and adding users to that group and save thhis data to DB and when the user closes the popup window, i want to refresh my ASP page and get the user group details that i created in popup window.

How do i proceed?

Answer 1

ASP.net and Classic ASP run side by side, but there is not problem using stardard HTTP between both (for POSTing forms, etc.).

The only problem you have is with authentication, but you can solve the problem using a custom authentication mechanism and sharing the some authentication token in a cookie that both can read.

Assuming that you already have a custom authentication mechanism for the classic ASP app, but only have to make the ASP.net app the know how to deal with it.

Other problems might be if you are using session variables, because they are no shared.

Edit: So, if there is no problem with authentication, do you proceed this way:

1. Use Javascript (JQuery) to open the popup using an iFrame containing the aspx page
2. Do your thing inside the aspx page posting the results to the DB
3. Close the popup and refresh the page using Javascript (window.location)
4. The ASP classic page read the new records in the DB and shows them in the refreshed page
5. Voilà!