Static variable causing concurrency issue in mvc

Question

We developing Web Application using mvc4. In many scenario we will get value from user in First Page/View which we need to keep in some varaiable until user reach Final Page/View. He/She may pass 4-5 views to reach final view from first view.

To keep Value in MVC. We had 3 ways.

1. Global Variable - But if i assign value in one action method. the value will be reset in another action method. So we dropped it.

2.Session - But we need to keep more then 5 values in each session. So we dropped it.

3.Static Varibale - Which works like charm. but in Multiple user it caused concurrency issue.

Is any other ways in mvc to keep values? please guide me.

Answer 1

Static variables will persist for the life of application domain, that is why you are seeing the concurrency issues with multiple users.

See: Static Variables and their implications in ASP.Net websites

There shouldn't be any problem in storing five values in a session. You can have List<T> and store that in session. Like:

List<string> someValues = new List<string> {"A","B","C","D", "E",};
HttpContext.Current.Session["userValues"] = someValues;

To retrieve it:

var someValues =  HttpContext.Current.Session["userValues"] as List<string>;
if(someValues != null)
{
 // found
}

The only thing you should consider is the size of data. Sessions are stored at server level for each user, storing too much data could cause a problem, though it depends on your configuration.

You may also see: What is ViewData, ViewBag and TempData? – MVC options for passing data between current and subsequent request