Session variables in ASP NET MVC

Question

I am writing a web application that will allow a user to browse to multiple web pages within the website making certain requests  All information that the user inputs will be stored in an object that I created  The problem is that I need this object to be accessed from any part of the website and I don t really know the best way to accomplish this  I know that one solution is to use session variables but I don t know how to use them in asp  net MVC  And where would I declare a session variable  Is there any other way

User · Answer

There are 3 ways to do it         You can directly access HttpContext Current Session   You can Mock HttpContextBase    Create a extension method for HttpContextBase      I prefer 3rd way This link is good reference   Get Set HttpContext Session Methods in BaseController vs Mocking HttpContextBase to create Get Set methods

User · Answer

Although I don t know about asp net mvc  but this is what we should do in a normal  net website  It should work for asp net mvc also   YourSessionClass obj Session  key   as YourSessionClass  if obj  null   obj new YourSessionClass    Session  key   obj      You would put this inside a method for easy access  HTH

User · Answer

You can use ViewModelBase as base class for all models   this class will take care of pulling data from session   class ViewModelBase      public User CurrentUser           get   return System Web HttpContext Current Session  user   as User         set                 System Web HttpContext Current Session  user   value                  You can write a extention method on HttpContextBase to deal with session data   T FromSession lt T gt  this HttpContextBase context  string key Action lt T gt  getFromSource null         if context Session key   null                 return  T  context Session key           else if getFromSource  null           var value   getFromSource       context Session key  value      return value          else    return null      Use this like below in controller   User userData   HttpContext FromSession lt User gt   userdata      gt    return user object from service db         The second argument is optional it will be used fill session data for that key when value is not present in session

User · Answer

Great answers from the guys but I would caution you against always relying on the Session  It is quick and easy to do so  and of course would work but would not be great in all cicrumstances   For example if you run into a scenario where your hosting doesn t allow session use  or if you are on a web farm  or in the example of a shared SharePoint application   If you wanted a different solution you could look at using an IOC Container such as Castle Windsor  creating a provider class as a wrapper and then keeping one instance of your class using the per request or session lifestyle depending on your requirements   The IOC would ensure that the same instance is returned each time   More complicated yes  if you need a simple solution just use the session    Here are some implementation examples below out of interest   Using this method you could create a provider class along the lines of   public class CustomClassProvider   ICustomClassProvider       public CustomClassProvider CustomClass customClass                 CustomClass   customClass             public string CustomClass   get  private set        And register it something like   public void Install IWindsorContainer container  IConfigurationStore store        container Register              Component For lt ICustomClassProvider gt    UsingFactoryMethod                       gt  new CustomClassProvider new CustomClass     LifestylePerWebRequest

User · Answer

Because I dislike seeing  HTTPContext Current Session  about the place  I use a singleton pattern to access session variables  it gives you an easy to access strongly typed bag of data    Serializable  public sealed class SessionSingleton        region Singleton      private const string SESSION SINGLETON NAME    Singleton 502E69E5-668B-E011-951F-00155DF26207        private SessionSingleton                     public static SessionSingleton Current               get                       if   HttpContext Current Session SESSION SINGLETON NAME     null                                 HttpContext Current Session SESSION SINGLETON NAME    new SessionSingleton                               return HttpContext Current Session SESSION SINGLETON NAME  as SessionSingleton                        endregion      public string SessionVariable   get  set        public string SessionVariable2   get  set                  then you can access your data from anywhere   SessionSingleton Current SessionVariable    Hello  World

User · Answer

Well  IMHO     never reference a Session inside your view master page minimize your useage of Session  MVC provides TempData obj for this  which is basically a Session that lives for a single trip to the server    With regards to  1  I have a strongly typed Master View which has a property to access whatever the Session object represents    in my instance the stongly typed Master View is generic which gives me some flexibility with regards to strongly typed View Pages  ViewMasterPage lt AdminViewModel gt   AdminViewModel       SomeImportantObjectThatWasInSession ImportantObject    AdminViewModel lt TModel gt    AdminViewModel where TModel   class      TModel Content     and then     ViewPage lt AdminViewModel lt U gt  gt

User · Answer

The answer here is correct  I however struggled to implement it in an ASP NET MVC 3 app  I wanted to access a Session object in a controller and couldn t figure out why I kept on getting a  Instance not set to an instance of an Object error   What I noticed is that in a controller when I tried to access the session by doing the following  I kept on getting that error  This is due to the fact that this HttpContext is part of the Controller object    this Session  blah      or this HttpContext Session  blah     However  what I wanted was the HttpContext that s part of the System Web namespace because this is the one the Answer above suggests to use in Global asax cs  So I had to explicitly do the following   System Web HttpContext Current Session  blah     this helped me  not sure if I did anything that isn t M O  around here  but I hope it helps someone

User · Answer

I would think you ll want to think about if things really belong in a session state   This is something I find myself doing every now and then and it s a nice strongly typed approach to the whole thing but you should be careful when putting things in the session context  Not everything should be there just because it belongs to some user   in global asax hook the OnSessionStart event  void OnSessionStart            HttpContext Current Session Add    MySessionObject   new MySessionObject         From anywhere in code where the HttpContext Current property    null you can retrive that object  I do this with an extension method   public static MySessionObject GetMySessionObject this HttpContext current        return current    null    MySessionObject current Session    MySessionObject     null      This way you can in code  void OnLoad            var sessionObj   HttpContext Current GetMySessionObject           do something with  sessionObj

User · Answer

If you are using asp net mvc  here is a simple way to access the session   From a Controller    Controller  ControllerContext HttpContext Session   name      From a View    lt   Session   name      gt    This is definitely not the best way to access your session variables  but it is a direct route  So use it with caution  preferably during rapid prototyping   and use a Wrapper Container and OnSessionStart when it becomes appropriate   HTH

User · Answer

My way of accessing sessions is to write a helper class which encapsulates the various field names and their types  I hope this example helps   using System  using System Collections Generic  using System Web  using System Web SessionState   namespace dmkp            lt summary gt          Encapsulates the session state          lt  summary gt      public sealed class LoginInfo               private HttpSessionState  session          public LoginInfo HttpSessionState session                        this  session   session                     public string Username                       get   return  this  session  Username      string Empty  ToString                  set   this  session  Username     value                       public string FullName                       get   return  this  session  FullName      string Empty  ToString                  set   this  session  FullName     value                      public int ID                       get   return Convert ToInt32  this  session  UID      -1                  set   this  session  UID     value                       public UserAccess AccessLevel                       get   return  UserAccess  this  session  AccessLevel                   set   this  session  AccessLevel     value

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