Get and Set Session variable in ASP.Net Core

In this article we will learn about Get and Set Session variable in ASP.Net Core.

Session is use in ASP.Net core is different way we will discuss it in this article, In typical ASP.Net and ASP.Net MVC we use session like session["MySession"].

Prerequisites

• I have used Visual Studio 2022 ( You can downgrade it )
• .NET Core 5 SDK ( You can downgrade it )

How to enable Session in ASP.Net Core in Startup.cs file

Setting the Session Timeout

We declared AddSession method of the services object inside ConfigureServices file.

The AddSession can be called directly without any parameters and it can also be used to set the IdleTimeout property which sets the Session Timeout duration.

	public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
	{
	services.AddControllersWithViews();
	// Default Session Timeout is 20 minutes.
	services.AddSession(options =>
	{
	options.IdleTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(30);
	});
	}

view raw ConfigureServices.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Enabling the Session

Session can be enabled using the Configure method. Inside this method, you will have to call the UseSession method.

app.UseSession();

Get and Set Session in Controller

On the below part it consists of the following two Action methods.

Action method for handling GET operation

Inside this Action method, Session object is set and the View is returned.

The Session object is set using the SetString method of the HttpContext.Session property.

 

Action method for handling POST operation

Inside this Action method, the Session variable name is received as parameter in POST method. Then the value of the Session object is fetched and assigned to ViewBag object.

	public class HomeController : Controller
	{
	private readonly ILogger<HomeController> _logger;
	public HomeController(ILogger<HomeController> logger)
	{
	_logger = logger;
	}
	public IActionResult Index()
	{
	//Set value in Session object.
	HttpContext.Session.SetString("Name", "John Smith");
	return View();
	}
	[HttpPost]
	public IActionResult Index(string sessionName)
	{
	//Get value from Session object.
	ViewBag.Name = HttpContext.Session.GetString(sessionName);
	return View();
	}
	}

view raw HomeController.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

View

The View consists of an HTML Form with following ASP.Net Tag Helpers attributes.

asp-action – Name of the Action. In this case the name is Index.

asp-controller – Name of the Controller. In this case the name is Home.

method – It specifies the Form Method i.e. GET or POST. In this case it will be set to POST.

When the Get Session Button is clicked, the Form gets submitted and the value of TextBox is sent to the Controller. Finally, the value of the Session object is displayed in the Label.

	@{
	ViewData["Title"] = "Home Page";
	}
	<form method="post" asp-controller="Home" asp-action="Index">
	<div class="col-sm-6 mt-5">
	<div class="col-sm-6">
	<input type="text" id="txtName" name="SessionName" class="form-control" autocomplete="off" />
	</div>
	<div class="col-sm-6 mt-4">
	<input type="submit" id="btnGet" class="btn btn-primary" value="Get Session" />
	</div>
	</div>
	</form>
	@if (@ViewBag.Name != null)
	{
	<div>
	The Session Value is : @ViewBag.Name
	</div>
	}

view raw Index.cshtml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Output

</> Find the Source Code in Github

  Summary

In this tutorial we discussed Get and Set Session variable in ASP.Net Core. If have any question related to this topic then give your feedback.