Question

The user clicks a button, a new form is generated where the user enters his/her password? How can I keep an in-memory copy of the username?

For instance in web forms, I can just use Session (“User”). How can I replicate this with winforms?

Thanks

Answer 1

You could use a static (Shared in VB .NET) object

Example

Public Class SessionInformation

   Public Shared Property UserPassword As String

End Class

You can then access this by calling

SessionInformation.UserPassword

Since there seems to be some concerns revolving around whether or not this is a valid implementation I will explain why this is not the best idea.

This creates a single instance of SessionInformation which means that if it is changed anywhere in the program it affects the rest of the program.

Maintaining object persistence can be difficult if you aren’t using a database (SQL, Access, a file, etc…) to maintain an out of memory copy of the object that you want to retrieve at a later date. The easiest way to implement this would be to use a SQLCE database that live in your application folder and using standard T-SQL to store the information that you need. However in the case of a password this may be non-ideal due to security issues.

Or the better way for logging in and out user would be to make use of the System.Security.Principal Namespace to create a user for your application.