Date index for Sep 2003

Hi,

Sebastian Paul Avarvarei wrote:

> I guess situations like mine are not very common, so re-reading read-only
> attributes from database each time would not be maybe the best use of
> resources.

Well, it *is* already loaded from the db. What it does is load the 
record from the db, and then overwrite this data with the values that 
are in the stack, if available. One reason is that we do not have to 
rely on the session data. If it's available it's used, if it's not for 
some reason, no problem, it'll still work, only not with cached data.

> Yes, doing on a per-attribute basis might be a better ideea. Maybe with a
> new flag, something like "DONT_CACHE", meaning that the attribute would
> always be loaded from the databases instead of getting its value from the
> cache/stack.

Only, we have run out of flags. :(
PHP doesn't allow us to do bitwise operations on numbers of more than 32 
bits. This means we can have only 31 flags (the 32nd bit is for the 
sign), which we already have. So adding flags is not an option..

> Coming back to the problem at hand (stacks), I was wondering if it is
> possible to access and modify the stack directly. I noticed there is a
> g_sessionManager->stackVar() method, but that one only allows me to
> acces/modify a "cached" attribute for the current page/level.

The most direct (hence dirty) way of hacking the stack is by accessing 
$g_sessionData, which is the global array containing everything related 
to ATK sessions.

It is an array with 'namespaces'. In normal situations, you'll only find 
one namespace (only when running multiple ATK apps on the same domain, 
you'll have more namespaces), which contains an attribute "stack", which 
is a subarray containing the complete stack. Actually, multiple stacks 
are in there if you use multiple browser windows. The one you need is 
the one that is stored with the key that is returned by atkStackID().

If you search atk/session/class.atksessionmanager.inc for the word 
'stack', you'll find some useful statements to help you get to the 
stack. It would not be difficult to add a getStack() method to the 
session manager.

> Would it be possible to access the stack for the previous level? And would
> it be wise? ;)

Well, no. I tend to rely on the stack as little as possible. But 
sometimes, it's just something you have to do. :)

Greetings,
Ivo