NAME

AxKit::XSP::Session - Session tag library for AxKit eXtensible Server Pages.

SYNOPSIS

Add the session: namespace to your XSP <xsp:page> tag:

    <xsp:page
         language="Perl"
         xmlns:xsp="http://apache.org/xsp/core/v1"
         xmlns:session="http://www.apache.org/1999/XSP/Session"
    >

Add this taglib to AxKit (via httpd.conf or .htaccess):

    AxAddXSPTaglib AxKit::XSP::Session

DESCRIPTION

The XSP session taglib provides basic session object operations to XSP using the Cocoon2 Session taglib specification. Except for very minor differences, it behaves fully compatible to the original implementation.

This taglib works in conjunction with Apache::AxKit::Plugin::Session, which does all the hard work. There are several configuration variants available, see the man page for details.

Special thanks go out to Michael A Nachbaur, who created the first version of this taglib. Parts of these docs are borrowed from his implementation.

Tag Reference

All tags returning a value look at the attribute 'as' to determine the type of result. If it equals 'node', the result gets placed inside an XML node with a name like the original tag minus 'get-'. This might create different output than Cocoon2, since I don't know it's naming scheme. Any other value results in a behaviour similar to putting <xsp:expr> around the string representation of the output, which means that usually the right thing happens.

Tags that return a list create multiple XML nodes (for 'as="node"') or a concatenation of the values without any separator.

Tags that use their contents as input should only get text nodes (including <xsp:expr>-style tags). Attribute nodes as mentioned in the description may be used, of course.

All tags ignore leading and trailing white space.

<session:get-attribute>

This tag retrieves an attribute value. It accepts either an attribute or child node called 'name'. The value passed as 'name' determines the key to retrieve data from the session object.

<session:set-attribute>

This tag sets an attribute value. It accepts either an attribute or child node called 'name'. The value passed in 'name' determines the key to store the contents of this tag into the session object.

<session:get-id>

Gets the session ID, which consists of a random-looking string of numbers and letters. Session IDs uniquely identify the associated session.

<session:get-creation-time>

Returns the time the current session got created. For this tag, the "as" attribute has two more values: 'long' (default) returns the time as seconds since 1970-01-01, 00:00 UTC; 'string' returns a textual representation of the date and time.

<session:get-last-accessed-time>

Similar to get-creation-time, except it returns the time since this session was last accessed. It differs from Cocoon2 in that it only has a resolution of 5 minutes. For performance reasons, not every access updates the access time.

<session:remove-attribute>

Removes an attribute from the session object. It accepts either an attribute or child node called 'name' which indicates which session attribute to remove.

<session:invalidate>

Invalidates (permanently removes) the current session from the data storage.

<session:is-new>

Indicates whether this session was just created, it returns 1 or 0. The current implementation doesn't work reliable, it just checks if the session's creation time lies within the last 5 seconds.

<session:get-max-inactive-interval>, <session:set-max-inactive-interval>

Gets the minimum time, in seconds, that the server will maintain this session between client requests. Remember, though, that a new session gets a default value settable in your httpd.conf (default 30 minutes), so usually you would change this in special cases only. Moreover, due to the implementation of Apache::AxKit::Plugin::Session, the session may remain valid up to 5 minutes longer than this value, which in turn gets rounded down to a multiple of 5 minutes (300 seconds).

<xsp:page>

The Cocoon2 taglib allows you to automatically create sessions on demand by putting 'create-session="true"' in the <xsp:page> tag. Unfortunately, AxKit XSP doesn't support this attribute. You can make this behaviour default, though; use the configuration facilities of Apache::AxKit::Plugin::Session to do that.

EXAMPLE

  <session:invalidate/>
  SessionID: <xsp:expr><session:get-id/></xsp:expr>
  Creation Time: <xsp:expr><session:get-creation-time/></xsp:expr>
    (Unix Epoch) <xsp:expr><session:get-creation-time as="string"/></xsp:expr>
  <session:set-attribute name="baz">
    boo
  </session:set-attribute>
  <session:set-attribute>
    <session:name>foo</session:name>
    Planet Bob
  </session:set-attribute>
  <session:remove-attribute name="foo"/>

BUGS

This software has beta quality. Use with care and contact the author if any problems occur.

AUTHOR

Jörg Walter <jwalt@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2002 Jörg Walter. Documentation Copyright (c) 1999-2001 The Apache Software Foundation, 2001 Michael A Nachbaur, 2002 Jörg Walter. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO

AxKit, Apache::Session, Apache::AxKit::Plugin::Session, AxKit::XSP::Auth, AxKit::XSP::Global, Cocoon2 Session Logicsheet http://xml.apache.org/cocoon2/userdocs/xsp/session.html

cpanm Apache::AxKit::Plugin::Session

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Apache::AxKit::Plugin::Session