Question

I need to log unique user sessions in Webmatrix / Razor / ASP.NET Web Pages. Does _appstart fire just when the app spins up the first time in IIS or does it fire once per unique user hit? If just once, how do I capture unique user sessions & settings?

UPDATE: I wasn’t sure if the Global.asax events were fired under Razor / ASP.NET WebPages. I tested it out and the Session_Start event fires just fine. Question resolved.

void Session_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // Code that runs when a new session is started
    Dictionary<DateTime, String> d = new Dictionary<DateTime, String>();
    Application.Lock();
    if (Application["d"] != null)
    {
        d = (Dictionary<DateTime, String>)Application["d"];
    }
    d.Add(DateTime.Now, HttpContext.Current.Session.SessionID);
    Application["d"] = d;
    Application.UnLock();

}

Answer 1

You have asked about logging “unique user sessions”, which is a little confusing. All sessions are unique, but not all sessions belong to unique visitors. Returning visitors will start new sessions. If you want to keep a count of sessions, you can hook into the Session_Start event in Global.asax. If you want to count unique visitors, use cookies. Set them when a user visits if one hasn’t already got a cookie. Ensure that their expiry is some time well into the future. If the visitor hasn’t got a tracking cookie for your site, they must be new (or they might have deleted their cookie…)