Using GUID as a Session Key?

Question

Basically I have an object that gets persisted across multiple pages, so I use Session to save and retrieve the object. I'm using a GUID for the Session key. I use a static constructor to create the GUID.

Here is an example of the object:

class Customer
{
    private static readonly string _sessionKey;

    public static string SessionKey
    {
        get { return _sessionKey; }
    }

    static Customer()
    {
        _sessionKey = Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
    }
}

Then I use it in my code like this:

Session.Add(Customer.SessionKey, new Customer());

...

Customer C = Session[Customer.SessionKey] as Customer;

I personally prefer this method instead of either a const string or a string literal for the Session key. Just wondering if there any downsides to this or what other approaches have you used?

Answer 1

Why do this? You should just define constants and be done with it. They aren't descriptive enough if you iterate over or use the debugger with Session .

Answer 2

If you have on Customer object in session - save under constant name. Otherwise consider saving collection of Customer objects under constant name.

Note: if you ever plan to use some other state provider (SQL/state service) instead of default in-memory one make sure your Customer object is serializale and makes sense between requests.