Sessions, Cookies, and Flashes

sessions.md

Sessions, Cookies, and Flashes

1. If we didn't have cookies and sessions, what would happen?

• you would not be able to "hold on to" data between http requests since http is stateless - it does not know about any other requests previously made.

1. What is a cookie?

• a cookie is a key value pair stored in a user's browser until its specified experation date.

1. What's the difference between a cookie and a session?

• A session is an entire hash and is a secure version of a cookie. Cookies are just key value pairs. Session is stored server side and cookie is stored browser side.

1. What's serialization and how does it come into play with sessions?

• the value data is unreadable by humans and you have to have the key to "de-serialize" it. It makes session data more secure unlike cookie data that you can change easily.

1. Why would we want to store a user id in a session?

• to keep track of whether they are loggedin in or not, and their movement while logged in

1. What is a flash? How long does a flash have before it expires?

• a flash is a hash-like object that only persists from one request to another - mostly used to provide feedback to the user when submitting forms.

1. What syntax would I use to add a user_id key and value to the session?

• session[:user_id] = user.id

1. What does "HTTP is stateless" mean?

• it does not remember previous requests.