Class: CGI::Session

Inherits:
Object
  • Object
show all
Defined in:
lib/cgi/session.rb,
lib/cgi/session/pstore.rb

Overview

Class representing an HTTP session. See documentation for the file cgi/session.rb for an introduction to HTTP sessions.

Lifecycle

A CGI::Session instance is created from a CGI object. By default, this CGI::Session instance will start a new session if none currently exists, or continue the current session for this client if one does exist. The new_session option can be used to either always or never create a new session. See #new() for more details.

#delete() deletes a session from session storage. It does not however remove the session id from the client. If the client makes another request with the same id, the effect will be to start a new session with the old session's id.

Setting and retrieving session data.

The Session class associates data with a session as key-value pairs. This data can be set and retrieved by indexing the Session instance using '[]', much the same as hashes (although other hash methods are not supported).

When session processing has been completed for a request, the session should be closed using the close() method. This will store the session's state to persistent storage. If you want to store the session's state to persistent storage without finishing session processing for this request, call the update() method.

Storing session state

The caller can specify what form of storage to use for the session's data with the database_manager option to CGI::Session::new. The following storage classes are provided as part of the standard library:

CGI::Session::FileStore

stores data as plain text in a flat file. Only works with String data. This is the default storage type.

CGI::Session::MemoryStore

stores data in an in-memory hash. The data only persists for as long as the current ruby interpreter instance does.

CGI::Session::PStore

stores data in Marshalled format. Provided by cgi/session/pstore.rb. Supports data of any type, and provides file-locking and transaction support.

Custom storage types can also be created by defining a class with the following methods:

new(session, options)
restore  # returns hash of session data.
update
close
delete

Changing storage type mid-session does not work. Note in particular that by default the FileStore and PStore session data files have the same name. If your application switches from one to the other without making sure that filenames will be different and clients still have old sessions lying around in cookies, then things will break nastily!

Maintaining the session id.

Most session state is maintained on the server. However, a session id must be passed backwards and forwards between client and server to maintain a reference to this session state.

The simplest way to do this is via cookies. The CGI::Session class provides transparent support for session id communication via cookies if the client has cookies enabled.

If the client has cookies disabled, the session id must be included as a parameter of all requests sent by the client to the server. The CGI::Session class in conjunction with the CGI class will transparently add the session id as a hidden input field to all forms generated using the CGI#form() HTML generation method. No built-in support is provided for other mechanisms, such as URL re-writing. The caller is responsible for extracting the session id from the session_id attribute and manually encoding it in URLs and adding it as a hidden input to HTML forms created by other mechanisms. Also, session expiry is not automatically handled.

Examples of use

Setting the user's name

require 'cgi'
require 'cgi/session'
require 'cgi/session/pstore'     # provides CGI::Session::PStore

cgi = CGI.new("html4")

session = CGI::Session.new(cgi,
    'database_manager' => CGI::Session::PStore,  # use PStore
    'session_key' => '_rb_sess_id',              # custom session key
    'session_expires' => Time.now + 30 * 60,     # 30 minute timeout 
    'prefix' => 'pstore_sid_')                   # PStore option
if cgi.has_key?('user_name') and cgi['user_name'] != ''
    # coerce to String: cgi[] returns the 
    # string-like CGI::QueryExtension::Value
    session['user_name'] = cgi['user_name'].to_s
elsif !session['user_name']
    session['user_name'] = "guest"
end
session.close

Creating a new session safely

require 'cgi'
require 'cgi/session'

cgi = CGI.new("html4")

# We make sure to delete an old session if one exists,
# not just to free resources, but to prevent the session 
# from being maliciously hijacked later on.
begin
    session = CGI::Session.new(cgi, 'new_session' => false)      
    session.delete                 
rescue ArgumentError  # if no old session
end
session = CGI::Session.new(cgi, 'new_session' => true)
session.close

Defined Under Namespace

Classes: FileStore, MemoryStore, NoSession, PStore

Instance Attribute Summary collapse

Class Method Summary collapse

Instance Method Summary collapse

Constructor Details

#initialize(request, option = {}) ⇒ Session

Create a new CGI::Session object for request.

request is an instance of the CGI class (see cgi.rb). option is a hash of options for initialising this CGI::Session instance. The following options are recognised:

session_key

the parameter name used for the session id. Defaults to '_session_id'.

session_id

the session id to use. If not provided, then it is retrieved from the session_key parameter of the request, or automatically generated for a new session.

new_session

if true, force creation of a new session. If not set, a new session is only created if none currently exists. If false, a new session is never created, and if none currently exists and the session_id option is not set, an ArgumentError is raised.

database_manager

the name of the class providing storage facilities for session state persistence. Built-in support is provided for FileStore (the default), MemoryStore, and PStore (from cgi/session/pstore.rb). See the documentation for these classes for more details.

The following options are also recognised, but only apply if the session id is stored in a cookie.

session_expires

the time the current session expires, as a Time object. If not set, the session will terminate when the user's browser is closed.

session_domain

the hostname domain for which this session is valid. If not set, defaults to the hostname of the server.

session_secure

if true, this session will only work over HTTPS.

session_path

the path for which this session applies. Defaults to the directory of the CGI script.

option is also passed on to the session storage class initialiser; see the documentation for each session storage class for the options they support.

The retrieved or created session is automatically added to request as a cookie, and also to its output_hidden table, which is used to add hidden input elements to forms.

WARNING the output_hidden fields are surrounded by a <fieldset> tag in HTML 4 generation, which is not invisible on many browsers; you may wish to disable the use of fieldsets with code similar to the following (see blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-list/37805)

cgi = CGI.new("html4")
class << cgi
    undef_method :fieldset
end



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# File 'lib/cgi/session.rb', line 245

def initialize(request, option={})
  @new_session = false
  session_key = option['session_key'] || '_session_id'
  session_id = option['session_id']
  unless session_id
	if option['new_session']
	  session_id = create_new_id
  @new_session = true
	end
  end
  unless session_id
	if request.key?(session_key)
	  session_id = request[session_key]
	  session_id = session_id.read if session_id.respond_to?(:read)
	end
	unless session_id
	  session_id, = request.cookies[session_key]
	end
	unless session_id
	  unless option.fetch('new_session', true)
 raise ArgumentError, "session_key `%s' should be supplied"%session_key
	  end
	  session_id = create_new_id
  @new_session = true
	end
  end
  @session_id = session_id
  dbman = option['database_manager'] || FileStore
  begin
    @dbman = dbman::new(self, option)
  rescue NoSession
    unless option.fetch('new_session', true)
      raise ArgumentError, "invalid session_id `%s'"%session_id
    end
    session_id = @session_id = create_new_id unless session_id
  @new_session = true
    retry
  end
  request.instance_eval do
	@output_hidden = {session_key => session_id} unless option['no_hidden']
	@output_cookies =  [
      Cookie::new("name" => session_key,
    "value" => session_id,
    "expires" => option['session_expires'],
    "domain" => option['session_domain'],
    "secure" => option['session_secure'],
    "path" => if option['session_path'] then
  option['session_path']
              elsif ENV["SCRIPT_NAME"] then
  File::dirname(ENV["SCRIPT_NAME"])
else
  ""
end)
    ] unless option['no_cookies']
  end
  @dbprot = [@dbman]
  ObjectSpace::define_finalizer(self, Session::callback(@dbprot))
end

Instance Attribute Details

#new_session ⇒ Object (readonly)

The id of this session.



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# File 'lib/cgi/session.rb', line 162

def new_session
  @new_session
end

#session_id ⇒ Object (readonly)

The id of this session.



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# File 'lib/cgi/session.rb', line 162

def session_id
  @session_id
end

Class Method Details

.callback(dbman) ⇒ Object

:nodoc:



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# File 'lib/cgi/session.rb', line 164

def Session::callback(dbman)  #:nodoc:
  Proc.new{
	dbman[0].close unless dbman.empty?
  }
end

Instance Method Details

#[](key) ⇒ Object

Retrieve the session data for key key.



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# File 'lib/cgi/session.rb', line 305

def [](key)
  @data ||= @dbman.restore
  @data[key]
end

#[]=(key, val) ⇒ Object

Set the session date for key key.



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# File 'lib/cgi/session.rb', line 311

def []=(key, val)
  @write_lock ||= true
  @data ||= @dbman.restore
  @data[key] = val
end

#close ⇒ Object

Store session data on the server and close the session storage.

For some session storage types, this is a no-op.



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# File 'lib/cgi/session.rb', line 325

def close
  @dbman.close
  @dbprot.clear
end

#delete ⇒ Object

Delete the session from storage. Also closes the storage.

Note that the session's data is not automatically deleted upon the session expiring.



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# File 'lib/cgi/session.rb', line 334

def delete
  @dbman.delete
  @dbprot.clear
end

#update ⇒ Object

Store session data on the server. For some session storage types, this is a no-op.



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# File 'lib/cgi/session.rb', line 319

def update  
  @dbman.update
end