Sessions

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is stateless, which vastly simplifies its implementation because a web server does not retain information across requests. Unfortunately, web applications require maintaining state – e.g., to implement a shopping cart. Cookies and sessions are two ways to maintain state about a user’s interactions to overcome this limitation of HTTP.

Learning Objectives

Describe an HTTP cookie
Use PHP sessions to implement authentication for web pages
Compare and contrast HTTP cookies and PHP sessions to track state

How to Complete this Lesson

Complete the following learning activities: (2.75–3.25 hours total)

Read HTTP cookies (10–15 minutes)
Attend the class meeting (60 minutes)
- Review the handout (10–15 minutes)
Complete the web development programming exercise (PEX) (90–120 minutes)
- Pass the automated tests for the website
- Add feature(s) to the website

Due

As a reminder, the following is due this lesson:

PEX: Web Development

Resources

Web APIs that provide alternatives to cookies for client-side storage:
- Web Storage API (5 minutes)
- IndexedDB (5–10 minutes)