Custom Web Publishing Guide

Table Of Contents

Developing FileMaker XSLT stylesheets 59

By default, the Web Publishing Engine will use a cookie to store the session ID. To accommodate clients that

do not allow cookies, you can use the

fmxslt:session_encode_url() function to add the Session ID to the URL.

To guarantee compatibility in all situations, it is recommended that you encode all URLs written out to the

page with the

fmxslt:session_encode_url() function. This function adds to your URL a semicolon-separated

parameter called

jsessionid, which is the identifier for the particular client’s parent session.

For example, instead of placing the following link on a page:

<a href="my_stylesheet.xsl?-db=products&-lay=sales&-grammar=fmresultset&-ﬁndall">hyperlinked text</a>

You should encode all links on a page as follows:

hyperlinked text</a>

If the client does not allow cookies, the page includes:

<a href="my_stylesheet.xsl;jsessionid=<session id>?-db=products&-lay=sales&-grammar=fmresultset&-ﬁndall">

hyperlinked text</a>

If the Web Publishing Engine detects that the client allows cookies, then the fmxslt:session_encode_url()

function stores the session ID in a cookie instead of the URL.

Note Session information does not persist after the Web Publishing Engine is restarted.

Using the session extension functions

Use the following session extension functions to manipulate session variables. You can store a string, number,

boolean value, or node-set in a session object. By using node-set, you can create a data structure in XML and

then store it between requests in the session object.

Session extension function

Data type

returned Description

fmxslt:session_exists(String session-name) boolean Checks if a session with the specified name exists.

fmxslt:create_session(String session-name) boolean Creates a session with the specified session name

and the default time-out, which is set via the

Administration Console. See the FileMaker

Server Advanced Web Publishing Installation

Guide.

Note This function requires the <?xslt-cwp-

buffer?> processing instruction. See “Using

content buffering” on page 58.

fmxslt:invalidate_session(String

session-name)

boolean Forces the session to time out immediately.

fmxslt:set_session_timeout(String

session-name, Number timeout)

boolean Sets the session timeout in minutes.

The default timeout for sessions is set via the

Administration Console.

fmxslt:session_encode_url(String url) string Encodes a URL with the session ID if the client

does not support cookies; otherwise returns input

URL.