Can you use an ASP.NET web control (ASCX) to render XML?

Question

Off the top of my head, I don't see any reason why you couldn't structure an ASP.NET custom web control (ASCX file) to output only XML.

If you avoid using controls in the System.Web.UI namespace, and just use XML tags and sub-controls, which also render only XML, you should end up with a perfectly valid XML document being rendered.

Am I right, or is there something I'm missing?

Answer 1

You are missing that the control has to be within a page which would have some HTML output for a tag marking the start and finish of the control though there may be a way to override that.

Answer 2

If you want to generate an XML document and return that to the client, then it's probably easier if you create a http handler (IHttpHandler) instead of using a page and user controls.

Answer 3

Your idea could work out if your ASCX's generate pure XML, and you overwrite the Page's Render methods to replace the HTML tags that form HTML, BODY and FORM etc. elements.

The question is what you would gain with this approach over simply generating an XML document and building a class library which generates those XML fragments you wanted to generate using the ASCX's.