Changing Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture on a ASHX Handler

Question

I want to change the language in my website. I thought i could do it using a Handler, so the drop down would go for http://domain.com/Handler.ashx?language=en-US, f.i.

So, it calls the handler, that has this code:

string selectedLanguage = context.Request.QueryString["language"];

    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture(selectedLanguage);
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo(selectedLanguage);

    context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain";
    context.Response.Write("Hello World");

    context.Response.Redirect(context.Request.UrlReferrer.AbsoluteUri.ToString());

But when it goes back, Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture is set to pt-BR, which was the initial value.

My question is: the Thread on the Handler is different than the aspx page that loads the content? And what would you suggest as a work around?

Thank you

Answer 1

Response.Redirect() sends an HTTP redirect back to the user's browser, the browser then makes another request to the server. This results in IIS handling an entirely new request and, therefore, a new thread is created to handle this request.

Although I would not recommend a handler to accomplish this, if you switch to Server.Transfer, your idea MAY work, as Server.Transfer does not use Http Redirects but simply creates a new request to send through the ASP.NET pipeline, all within the context of the same initial request.

Hope that helps,