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ASP ADVANCED

In this chapter, you learn how to work with sessions.  You learn how to use session collections, properties, methods, and events.  You also learn how to read and create cookies.  Finally, some methods are discussed for retaining state without cookies.

What are sessions?  A session is something that starts the moment a user requests a page from your Web site and ends soon after the user leaves.  Each visitor to your web site is given an individual session.

Sessions Can be used to store a visitor's preferences.  For example, does the visitor prefer that Web pages have a green background or a blue background?  Does the visitor have a strong hostility toward frames?  Does the visitor prefer to view a text-only version of your Web site?  These preferences can be tracked by using sessions.

Sessions can also be used to create virtual shopping carts.  Whenever a visitor selects an item to buy at your Web site the item can be added to a shopping cart. When the user is ready to leave, he or she can purchase everything in the shopping cart at once.  All the information about the items in the shopping cart can be stored in a session.

Finally, sessions can be used to keep track of the habits of your visitors.  In the same way in which environmentalists use tracking devices to record the roaming habits of the great white shark, you can use sessions to track the movements of your visitors as they roam from page to page.  This information can be used for advertising purposes, to improve the design of your Web site, or simply to satisfy your curiosity.