How do i fetch a session by ID?

Rails
1

This must seem like a silly question to those of you in the know, but
digging around http://api.rubyonrails.com/ doesnt get my anywhere.

How do I retrieve a session based on it’s ID? I’d expect something like

my_session = ActiveController::Sessions.find_by_id(session_id)

But I can’t find anything even remotely similar to that in the API…

Thanks,
Tyler

2

Hi Tyler,

Tyler MacDonald wrote,

This must seem like a silly question to those of you in the know, but
digging around http://api.rubyonrails.com/ doesnt get my anywhere.

How do I retrieve a session based on it’s ID? I’d expect something like

my_session = ActiveController::Sessions.find_by_id(session_id)

But I can’t find anything even remotely similar to that in the API…

That’s because, for the most part, you won’t ever need to do that. The
Rails architecture protects you from having to figure out that crap. If
you
need to, for example, delete the current session, you just do
session.destroy. If you need to access a session variable for the
current
session, you just do session[:variable_of_interest]. As you learn more
about Rails, you’ll understand why that’s true. If you have some reason
for
doing more than that kind of stuff, you’ll need to say more about what
it is
you’re trying to do. Most often, though, folks new to Rails find things
like this are just much easier than they’re used to.

hth.
Bill

3

Tyler,

Are you looking to do something like this?

session.session_id

That will retrieve the unique session_id that’s generated. I’m assuming
you’re using:
config.action_controller.session_store = :active_record_store

-Dave

4

Dave H. [email protected] wrote:

Are you looking to do something like this?

session.session_id

That will retrieve the unique session_id that’s generated. I’m assuming
you’re using:
config.action_controller.session_store = :active_record_store

I will be, but I would still like a way to get from session ID to
session
object without depending on active_record_store… that way I can turn
this
stuff into plugins, without them depending on a model.

Thanks,
Tyler

5

Bill W. [email protected] wrote:

If you have some reason for doing more than that kind of stuff, you’ll
need to say more about what it is you’re trying to do.

I have three uses for grabbing a session by ID right now, and I’m
betting as
I go along there will be more. :slight_smile:

  1. AJAX instant messanging. When two people initiate an IM conversation,
    I
    would like the messages to be delivered by session ID.

  2. PayPal. I would like the session that initiated a purchase to be
    indicated in the PayPal IPN. I can do that without actually looking up
    the
    session, but it would be nice to do something with the session (eg; set
    a
    flag) when the IPN comes in. Yes, I could set a flag on the “user”, but
    what
    if somebody is making a purchase without creating an account?

  3. Applets. These can’t/don’t always pass the browser’s cookies along.
    It’d
    be nice to point applets at a url with the session id embedded, and then
    work with that to figure out what user/session is using the applet.

So all I really need, is some way to get from a Session ID to a session
object.

Thanks,
Tyler