Proper coding habits: Sessions

Tea_J

I have to maintain huge amount of variables accross several pages. (Examination program)..

I can use HTML hidden variables and send them all via post to each page..

or use cookie..

but i prefer storing all my variables in sessions..

now.. would you consider this ok and acceptable? or is it considered an abuse to sessions...

just wondering..

tea

Weedpacket

That's what session (variable)s are for: maintaining state during a session.

Tea_J

would it then be still acceptable if a store HUGE amount of data in sessions? say, an uploaded file that's around 100KB or even 1MB???

still.. just wondering around..

tea

Weedpacket

Originally posted by Tea_J
would it then be still acceptable if a store HUGE amount of data in sessions? say, an uploaded file that's around 100KB or even 1MB???

still.. just wondering around..

tea

In that case you'd probably be better off storing the data in a file, and storing a name in the session: all that session data is loaded in when the page is run.

Of course, then it's your job to delete the file later after the session has expired.

You can write your own session handlers that hook into the functions provided.

RossC0

Its feasible - but would bloat your session size - which would have an impact on available resources and your application may be slow.

If that is acceptable then the approach would be easily implemented. You might want to consider optimising the approach is the data needed on every request would it be more efficient to store the data in a db or in a temp file and access it on an as needed basis.

Tea_J

yes indeed a temp file would be more efficient.. just wondering anyway..

🙂

thanks

pkemper

The best way is to store all data in a database table and store the record key in a session.

In terms of cleanup, you would delete all records that were touched longer than a month ago (just do the proper delete in every page of your script).