How to differ sessions in browser-tabs?
In a web-application implemented in java using JSP and Servlets; if I store information in the user session, this information is shared from all the tabs from the same browser. How to differ sessions in the browser-tabs? In this example:
<%@page language="java"%>
<%
String user = request.getParameter("user");
user = (user == null ? (String)session.getAttribute("SESSIONS_USER") : user);
session.setAttribute("SESSIONS_USER",user);
%>
<html><head></head><body>
<%=user %>
<form method="post">
User:<input name="user" value="">
<input type="submit" value="send">
</form>
</body></html>
Copy this code in a jsp page (testpage.jsp), deploy this file in an existing context of a web application on the server (I use Apache Tomcat), then open a browser (FF, IE7 or Opera) using the correct URL (localhost/context1/testpage.jsp), type your name in the input and submit the form. Then open a new tab in the same browser, and then you can see your name (get from the session) on the new tab. Be careful with the browser-cache, sometimes seems that it doesn't happen, but it's in the cache, refresh the second tab.
Thanks.
Answer
You can use HTML5 SessionStorage (window.sessionStorage). You will generate a random id and save in session Storage per Browser Tab. Then each browser tab has his own Id.
Data stored using sessionStorage do not persist across browser tabs, even if two tabs both contain webpages from the same domain origin. In other words, data inside sessionStorage is confined to not just the domain and directory of the invoking page, but the browser tab in which the page is contained in. Contrast that to session cookies, which do persist data from tab to tab.