2020r1 - Session properties

Targets Web
#1

where are session properties (and their values) such as Browser, BrowserType, sessionPlatform, etc.?

#2

These properties were removed because, if I remember correctly, it had become onerous to parse out each needed property from the User-Agent string. You can now access this data using the Session.RawHeaders method for search for your explicitly needed exceptions.

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#3

Here’s a quick and dirty method to add to your Session object to get the User-Agent string from the RawHeaders, it could be improved upon, but I just tossed it together to have something to show:

Public Function getUserAgent() as String
  var headers() as String = self.RawHeaders.ReplaceLineEndings( EndOfLine ).ToArray( EndOfLine )
  var searchField as String = "User-Agent"
  var uaResult as String
  for each line as String in headers
    if line.NthField( ":", 1 ) = searchField then
      uaResult = line.Middle( searchField.Length + 1, line.Length - (searchField.Length + 1) )
    end if
  next
  
  Return uaResult
End Function
#4

The reason they were removed are threefold:

  1. The data used to get them is notoriously unreliable these days. They can easily be spoofed and many browsers do just that.
  2. The Xojo framework was changed to be browser agnostic. That is, the appearance and functionality are essentially identical everywhere.
  3. Instead of making assumptions about functionality based on the user-agent strings, the framework now uses feature detection, that is, when the browser first connects, we run a series of tests to determine what features the browser actually has. It’s a much more reliable way of doing this and the info is available through the WebSDK.
2 Likes
#5

Thanks for clarifying, Greg!

#6

Sorry, how do I get these informations through WebSDK?

#7

I’m feverishly working on finishing the docs with the intention of having them ready around the time that we ship 1.1.

#8

I thought there was an easier way to get the user agent string? Am I misremembering? Should I make a ticket? I feel like the user agent string should be a simple session property.

#9

ok. thank you.

#10

I haven’t seen an easier method, though I’m also switching my code over to feature detection rather than user agents where I’ve previously incorporated that.

#11

Session.Header("User-Agent")

2 Likes
#12

Still we like to have the data for statistics to know what browser a visitor uses and what OS.
The code to detect was in Web 1.x and I bet you could copy it over to Web 2.

#13

That code was a never ending battle. User agent strings would change subtly several times per year and our parser was never up to date.

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#14