Add Optional Session

[RomainLanz]

Rendered

At the moment, any routes create a session by default. This can lead to performance issue for high traffic application and may be undesired.

We should provide an easy and developer-friendly way to disable session on some routes.

[targos]

Isn't the session implementable/exposable as a middleware? That would make it much easier to customize where it is enabled.

[RomainLanz]

In AdonisJS 4 it was handled by a middleware.

In V5, the session is initiated directly from the provider in a server hook (source code).

[targos]

Was there a technical reason for implementing it this way?

[thetutlage]

@targos Yup. Middleware doesn't guarantee that downstream code will be executed everytime. For example: Following is the example of how the session middleware was implemented earlier

class SessionMiddleware {
  public async handle (ctx, next) {
    await ctx.session.init()
    await next()
    await ctx.session.commit()
  }
}

Now if the next method (which is next middleware or the controller) raises an exception, the commit method will never be executed. Yes, we can wrap it inside a try/catch statement. But then that prevents the global exception handler from being called.

The server hooks in v5 guarantee that before and after hooks are always called. There is a limitation in what you can achieve with these hooks, but the guarantee of being always called is what sessions need.

[targos]

I understand. Then I think it's important that this proposal defines a to exclude the session from either:

• A route prefix
• A group of routes

[Xstoudi]

Any update?

[targos]

Yes, we can wrap it inside a try/catch statement. But then that prevents the global exception handler from being called.

You could also wrap it in a try/finally statement.