Question

Coldfusion has a system created client variable called lastvisit.

Is there a way to get the value of that variable during the request that it is actually set (i.e. client.thisvisit)?

The idea would be that I can store the “ThisVisit” timestamp in session and then compare it to lastvisit when the next request is made. This would tell me if another request was made in the session.

The purpose is that we have a page that we use an ajax record lock on which refreshes the lock every minute. After sixty minutes the ajax lock code will automatically log the user out of the website (due to inactivity). The issue arises where the user is executing tasks in other windows/tabs (indication of activity).

Sense all requests update LastVisit, I would like to have the ajax lock code save the save a “thisvisit” value so that the next time it runs it can compare it to the LastVisit client variable.

Answer 1

A couple requirements:

• Set up to use a DB rather than registry for your client vars (trust
  me).
• Client vars have to have “global variables” enabled
• Your cfapplication or application.cfc has to have client management enabled.

If you have those three things you can select a query like the following:

<cfquery name="getLvisit" datasource="myClientVarsDB">
    SELECT lvist 
    FROM   cglobal
    WHERE  cfid = 
        <cfqueryparam type="CF_SQL_CHAR" value="#urltoken#"/>
</cfquery>

urltoken might be wrong… it may need the jsessionID or CFID but my memory tells me cftoken. I’d have to hunt down a site using Client DBs to give you a definitive answer.

So that would give you the current value of the lvisit variable. you would store this in the session and then compare it against the value from the table on subsequent queries before you overwrite it again (if that makes sense).

Note – this value is updated on each request – so your query get’s the current value (before it has been updated). I previously thought this it was updated first but according to Tom it’s actually updated last.