varsession

varsession offers a very simple way to manage Session Variables with node.js when using express.js

How does it work?

First, you have to activate session management using express-session middleware.

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var session = require('express-session');

app.use( session({secret:'mySecretKey', cookie: { maxAge: 600000 }, resave:false, saveUninitialized:true});

With this lines, sessions are now managed. This means that you have a separate environment for each connection opened in the server. In this environment, you can now create session variables to store data throughout requests to the server.

How?

varsession offers simple functions to define session variables:

var varSession = require('varsession');

function setVariables(req,res){
    var varsession = varSession(req);

    // we define here session variables named "name" and "surname"
    varsession("name","ROUABHI");
    varsession("surname","Samir");
    res.status(200).send("Variables defined.").end();
}

function getVariables(req,res){
    var varsession = varSession(req);

    // we use now session variables
    res.status(200).send("My name is :"+ varsession("surname") + " " + varsession("name")).end();
}

app.get("/set" , setVariables);
app.get("/get" , getVariables);

Beware : the session variables are stored in cookies so they are registred only when there is a HTTP response.

Different possibilities

• varsession() returns all the variables of the session
• varsession('variable') gets the value of a variable
• varsession('variable',{value}) sets a value in a variable
• varsession('variable',null) deletes a variable
• varsession('variable','field') gets a value in a field of a variable. is similar to varsession('variable')['field']
• varsession('variable','field',{value}) sets a value in a field of a variable.

Old functions of v0.1 .set, .get, .clear and .setAttr are now deprecated.

Other fonctions

2 other fonctions currently available:

var varsession = varSession(req);

// destroys the session and all session variables defined
varsession.abandon();

// returns the ip address of the device that made the request.
console.log( varsession.ip() );