Session Management

Items that need to be stored in an org.osid.OsidContext object

There is a unique OsidContext object for each user. The OsidContext object gets loaded into the RepositoryManager when a user starts a new "search session" (selecting sources, conducting a search, paging through results, selecting certain results, etc.). The RepositoryManager will then "know" the user throughout the user's session in the system.

Key	Description	Type
`repositoryId`	identifies which repository belongs to the user of this OsidContext	long, alpha-numeric String
`xSessionId`	necessary to identify a specific user and allow that user access to X-Server services	long, alpha-numeric String
`xGroupNumber`	identifies a result set created by submitting a query with the /wiki/spaces/SLIB/pages/2921168923 command. This number is necessary for asynchronous searches, retrieving results and pagination	short, numeric String
`newSession`	a flag indicating whether the user has logged in or not	short String ("true"/"false")
`?resultsPerPage`	stores how many results are showed per page. Needed for paging through results.	java.lang.Integer
`?resultsCursor`	stores which results are currently being displayed. Needed for 'next' and 'previous' paging options	java.lang.Integer
`?resultsTotal`	total number of results	java.lang.Integer

Issues

How do we know when a user's session is done? This is up to the consumer. In our case (using Servlets), we can choose when to invalidate a session: a timeout & when the search dialog is closed.
Will the metasearch engine support multiple users logged on at once? Yes.