CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phphtmlhttpcross-browser
Itay Moav -Malimovka
Itay Moav -Malimovka

Reputation: 53607

built in way to identify each browser window

IS there, a cross browser, way to identify each browser window uniquely?
I need to store some values which are unique for a window.
Even if the user opens two windows on the same browser to the same site.

There is no Ajax involved, every click on a link will load a new page.

And how would I access that name from the server? (for this, assume I use php, but example in any other language, is also good)

Upvotes: 1

Views: 416

Answers (2)

goat
goat

Reputation: 31823

You could identify the windows by putting and maintaining unique arguments into the query strings of all the urls. For example, if the current url is /foo.php?windowid=abhn7y76g7hygy7yhnui98u8mc then each url in that pages html would have an id distnct from the url and the others in the document. uniqid() is perfect for this as it uses time, and so they're lexicographically increasing id's.

The one edge case you need to handle is when someone opens the exact same link twice(maybe via clicking, or maybe via copy pasting the url and manually opening a new window). I think the only real solution is to have the server keep track of which id's have been used, and if it notices a second request for the same id, it redirects the request to the same url, but a new id. This would maintain unique id's across all browser windows.

on second thought, dont even bother attaching the ids to urls in the html. Just make the server do the logic if no id, redirect to same url with a new id. if id, and the id has been used before, redirect to same url with new id.

make sure to send no cache headers for the html pages because you need the browsers to recheck with your server if the back button is used.

Upvotes: 3

Diodeus - James MacFarlane
Diodeus - James MacFarlane

Reputation: 114417

window.name can be set via JavaScript. Strangely, it can also hold a few megabaytes worth of string data and is sometimes used as client-side storage.

You'd have to pass the name back to the server with each request in order to know which window in the caller.

Upvotes: 2

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