Howard, Keep this axiom in mind when developing your application: "The Web is Stateless". Each page request is independent and isolated from each other. The only way to maintain state is for the web browser to tell the server who it is. This is done either with cookies, URL variables or form fields. In all cases the web browser is telling the server who it is so that the server can determine what should be done.
Cold Fusion uses two tokens to maintain state: CFID and CFTOKEN. They are assigned on the first request and if enabled CF attempts to send them to the browser as cookies. On each subsequent request the browser sends them back. In this way CF can maintain state and allows you to use both Session Variables (stored in memory) or Client Variables (stored in a database). If the browser won't accept cookies then the browser needs to pass those tokens back to the server as a URL variable or as (hidden) form fields. The obvious down side to using URL variables is that someone can have their session hijacked if they send the link to someone else. The link will look something www.somedomain.com/mypage.cfm?CFID=234&CFTOKEN=820123 which is someone else's session. It's not a perfect world we Internet gurus work in <smile>. Best regards, Dennis Powers UXB Internet (203)879-2844 http://www.uxbinfo.com/ -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2001 10:18 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Points of failure for session variables Thanks, Jim. No cookies. No clusters. -----Original Message----- From: Jim McAtee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2001 5:39 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: Points of failure for session variables If you're relying on cookies to implement session variables, then there are a lot of ways that cookies can be blocked or otherwise not passed from server to client or vise versa. Hardware firewalls, software firewalls, proxy servers, browser settings are a few. Then there are issues at the server end... clustering, load balancing. Jim ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Your ad could be here. Monies from ads go to support these lists and provide more resources for the community. http://www.fusionauthority.com/ads.cfm FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
