Question

I tried using the CGI::Session Library but for some reason my code won’t keep a persistant session … this is using Perl Moose for OOP, and is using Moose builders to instantiate the _cgi and _sss (session) parameters of a My::Session object…

UPDATED CODE

My::Role::PersistantData

package My::Role::PersistsData;

use Moose::Role;
use namespace::autoclean;
  has '_cgi' => (
           is        => 'rw', 
           isa       => 'Maybe[CGI]', 
           builder   => '_build_cgi'
  );

  has '_sss' => (
           is        => 'rw', 
           isa       => 'Maybe[CGI::Session]',
           builder   => '_build_sss'
  );

My::Session

    package My::Session;

    use Moose;
    use namespace::autoclean;
    with 'My::Role::PersistsData';  

    use CGI;
    use CGI::Session ('-ip_match');
    use CGI::Carp qw/fatalsToBrowser warningsToBrowser/;

    sub start{
      my($self) = @_;
      my $cgi = $self->cgi();
      $self->log("Session Started!");        
    }


    sub cgi{
      my($self) = @_;
      $self->_cgi = $self->_build_cgi() unless $self->_cgi;
      return ($self->_cgi); 
    }


    sub _build_cgi{
      my($self) = @_; 
      my $cgi = CGI->new();

      if(!$cgi){
        #print "mising cgi";          
      }

      return ( $cgi );
    }


    sub _build_sss{
          my($self) = @_;
          my $cgi = $self->cgi(); 

          my $sid = $cgi->cookie("CGISESSID") || $cgi->param('CGISESSID') || undef;

          $self->log("Session ID Initial is: ".($sid?$sid:"undef"));

          my $sss =  CGI::Session->new(undef, $cgi, {Directory=>'tmp'})  or die CGI::Session->errstr;



          my $cookie = $cgi->cookie(CGISESSID => $sss->id() );


          $self->log("Resulting Session ID is: ".$sid." cookie is: ".$cookie);    

          print $cgi->header( -cookie=>$cookie );

          return ( $sss );
    }

main.pl

use Data::Dumper; 
$Data::Dumper::Sortkeys = 1;

use CGI;
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
use My::Session;

$| = 1;
$, = " ";
$\ = "\n <br />";

  my $sss = My::Session->new();      
  $sss->start();
  print Dumper($sss);

It’s pretty weird because the first time I run this I get an actual CGISESSION ID and I am able to carry it over on a page refresh…

however if I load the page again, suddenly the $sss (session) comes back as undefined, when it should return a new Session object:

 $sss = new CGI::Session("driver:File", $sid, {Directory=>'/tmp'})

for some reason $sss is coming back as undefined, which means it didnt initiate a new Session. A few tweaks to my code revealed this error:

new(): failed: load(): couldn't thaw() data using CGI::Session::Serialize::default:thaw(): couldn't thaw. syntax error at (eval 253) line 2, near "/>" 

I also snooped around in CGI::Session.pm and found where this error was being thrown at, I guess it’s not able to parse _DATA or even read it…because of some strange characters… "/>"

CGI::Session.pm

....
    $self->{_DATA} = $self->{_OBJECTS}->{serializer}->thaw($raw_data);
    unless ( defined $self->{_DATA} ) {
        #die $raw_data . "\n";
        return $self->set_error( "load(): couldn't thaw() data using $self->{_OBJECTS}->{serializer} :" .
                                $self->{_OBJECTS}->{serializer}->errstr );
    }

Any idea why this isnt working?

Answer 1

For some reason you can’t use Data::Dumper or other HTML tags with CGI::Session

Answer found here and here

Removing Dumper and HTML output fixed this problem — kind of —

updated

Apparently you have to use escapes

 $cgi->escapeHTML ( Dumper($session) );

and that FINALLY resolves this problem.

Perl is a pain!