Managing Session in Servlets
We all know that HTTP is a stateless protocol. All requests and responses are independent. But sometimes you need to keep track of client's activity across multiple requests. For eg. When a User logs into your website, not matter on which web page he visits after logging in, his credentials will be with the server, until he logs out. So this is managed by creating a session.
Session Management is a mechanism used by the Web container to store session information for a particular user. There are four different techniques used by Servlet application for session management. They are as follows:
- Cookies
- Hidden form field
- URL Rewriting
- HttpSession
Session is used to store everything that we can get from the client from all the requests the client makes.
How Session Works
The basic concept behind session is, whenever a user starts using our application, we can save a unique identification information about him, in an object which is available throughout the application, until its destroyed. So wherever the user goes, we will always have his information and we can always manage which user is doing what. Whenever a user wants to exit from your application, destroy the object with his information.