What's the best way to embed constant server-side tags inside javascript code?

Question

I have a bunch of javascript functions which depend on some server-side constants (such as strings from my resources file). While I was developing them I kept the javascript code in the view header, so I could simply used server-side tags inside my javascript code, but now I'd like to move the javascript functions to a separate file.

I can't use a regular js file since that would not be interpreted by the server, making the server tags embedded there useless. I don't want to define variables in the page either since that seems way to awkward and error-prone.

What I've done instead is to create a new aspx file, put the javascript functions there and include that aspx file instead of a regular js file in my master template. It seems a bit unorthodox, but it seems to work fine.

Is there any downside to my approach that I have not taken into account? Or any better (less obscure) method?

Edit Bonus question: Should I use a DOCTYPE inside the included scripts file? After all, the scripts file is included by a script tag already. I tried to mimic regular js files, so I did not specify any DOCTYPE.

Answer 1

The file extension, be it js, aspx, ashx, bla, foo, whatever isn't all that important. If you have server side generated javascript that isn't specific to a page, then creating an ASPX page to render the javascript should be okay.

We'll often use HTTP handlers to generate dynamic javvascript in our systems. We also make sure to set the response headers to text/javascript to let the client browser know that we are sending back javascript.