ASP.NET 2.0 + Profiles

I had some questions today about the Profile Provider and why it was not working in a particular setup. It was a problem with their settings in the web.config. Here is one of the clearer explanations of how to set up the config.
http://www.theserverside.net/tt/articles/showarticle.tss?id=CreatingProfileProvider

This MSDN article is also handy: http://quickstarts.asp.net/QuickStartv20/aspnet/doc/profile/default.aspx

All you have to do is add settings like below to the web.config:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">
  <system.web>
    <profile>
      <properties>
        <add name="BirthDate" type="DateTime"/>
        <add name="FavoriteNumber" type="int"/>
        <add name="Comment" type="string"/>
        <add name="FavoriteColor" type="string" defaultValue="Blue"/>
        <add name="FavoriteAlbums"
             type="System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection"
             serializeAs="Xml"/>
      </properties>
    </profile>
  </system.web>
</configuration>

Then use HttpContext.Current.Profile like this (no additional classes required):

// BirthDate is DateTime
textDob.Text = Profile.BirthDate.ToShortDateString();

// FavoriteNumber is Int32
textFavNumber.Text = Profile.FavoriteNumber.ToString();

// Comment is String
textComment.Text = Profile.Comment;

// FavoriteColor is String
dropDownFavColor.SelectedValue = Profile.FavoriteColor;

// FavoriteAlbums is StringCollection
foreach (string album in Profile.FavoriteAlbums)
{
  listBoxFavAlbums.Items.FindByText(album).Selected = true;
}

The real question is: where does the strongly typed Profile come from? The ASP.NET compiler parses web.config to uncover the profile schema defined inside, and then code-generates a class in the Temporary ASP.NET Files directory. This is the class that is created when you add these elements to the web.config:

public class ProfileCommon : System.Web.Profile.ProfileBase {

    public virtual short Age
    {
        get
        {
            return ((short)(this.GetPropertyValue("Age")));
        }
        set
        {
            this.SetPropertyValue("Age", value);
        }
    }
   
    // other properties ...
} 

See http://www.odetocode.com/Articles/440.aspx for a sample of this code and a more detailed walkthrough of how the httpmodules and proxy classes created by .NET are created and used.