Towards validation of session management in web applications based on graph transformation

Abstract

One of the challenges faced by Web developers is how to create a coherent application out of a series of independent Web pages. This problem is a particular concern in Web development because HTTP as underlying protocol is stateless. Each browser request to a Web server is independent, and the server retains no memory of a browser's past requests. To overcome this limitation, application developers require a technique to provide consistent user sessions on the Web. Before implementing a Web application, developers have to decide which session data is to store. In this paper, we provide a modelling approach for powerful and flexible Web session management, based on UML. We propose the definition of a session model which contains version management issues. The validation of a session model concerning consistency issues is possible, due to the formal basis of our approach using graph transformation. © Springer-Verlag 2004.