Re: access and session control

Rick Troth (troth@rice.edu)
Thu, 15 Sep 1994 12:20:48 -0500 (CDT)

> ... The program will also add some a session key
> to the URL. For example, if a document contained the following:
>
> <A HREF=http://foo.bar/baz.html> (where my server is running on foo.bar)
>
> this might be rewritten as:
>
> <A HREF=http://foo.bar/cgi-bin/access?file=baz.html+session_key=SK>
>
> (where SK is the session key which gets passed around)
>
> The web server while keep state associated with the session key.

I'd avoid putting state information after the question mark.
Some clients will strip it in some cases/places. A better place for
state information is between the question mark and a preceeding comma
or semi-colon, like

http://foo.bar/cgi-bin/access,file=baz.html+session_key=SK?...

> I assume that similar things have been done. Does anyone have any pointers?

Yes. Look at

http://vm.rice.edu/local/problem,list?assignee=troth&status=open

Its "links" will have a ",read" instead of a ",list".
Here, the state information is whether you're listing a range of problem
records or examining a single problem record.

> --Dan Aronson dan@wais.com
> WAIS Inc

-- 
Rick Troth <troth@rice.edu>, Rice University, Information Systems