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This topic presents conceptual and working information about the wwa_app_module_session API package. Information is presented in these sections:

Introduction

Working with the application session object

Access to the data

Session visibility

Lifetime of the session

Introduction
The form component session API object represents the unit of session storage for a form component built using Oracle9iAS Portal. This object can be used to access and manipulate data aspects of a form component for a given session.

An instance of this object exists for each copy of a running form component, for each user.

Working with the application session object
The following steps describe the general model for working with this object:

1. Create an instance, using the create_session method.
2. Load an appropriate subset of the data from a source, such as the EMP table, using one of the set_value methods.
3. Save these changes, using the save_session method.
4. Retrieve the session ID, using the get_id method and store the information. Typically this is achieved by saving it in the Web page being generated.
5. Generate the Web page, calling the get_value_as_string method to obtain the (NLS formatted) version of the data value.
6. When a request is received for the session object (passing in the session ID saved in the Web page), load the session object using the ID with the load_session method.
7. Change the content of the object, using one of the set_value methods.
8. Repeat step 3, 4, and 5.

   Typically step 2 and step 8 are only performed by user code, whilst the other steps are performed by the Oracle Portal framework.

Access to the data
Attribute values within a form component session are stored in native form. For example, the attribute may have been defined to use the logical type CURRENCY, which has a native implementation type of NUMBER.

Functions within this session storage object permit setting and returning of attribute values in either native form, or in a string representation of the logical type.

The session storage methods access all of the functionality of the session storage object.

Form component session visibility
The storage allocated by this object is visible only within the scope of the Login session that created it. The Login session that created the storage object is defined by calling wwctx_api.get_sessionid.

As a result, it is not possible for multiple users to share the same form component session. Nor is it possible for a single user, operating multiple Login sessions, to access form component sessions across the Login session boundary.

Lifetime of a form component session
After creation, form component sessions exist until they are explicitly dropped using the drop_session method, or are implicitly dropped because the user logs off the system (either explicitly or implicitly).

It is the responsibility of the callers of this object to ensure that any critical data is copied from this object, to more permanent storage, before the session is removed.

Version

Oracle Portal 3.0.9