Advice: GET vs. POST vs. SESSION

I was hoping that some of you would be able to give me some advice.

I have started creating a web application that makes heavy use of URL GET
variables in order to solve a problem that I have had with POST in the
past - namely, having to refresh the document and repost the variables when
you use the browser's back button.

So I enthusiastically have embraced GET variables, but am now having a
struggle editing the URL variable string.

So this is my question: is using URL GET variables that best way to avoid
that browser back button effect?

I have thought about using session variable extensively, but that I am going
to have to be unsetting them all over the place.

So - anyone have any advice?
Thanks in advance!

On Sun, 2003-11-23 at 14:27, Jed R. Brubaker wrote:
> I was hoping that some of you would be able to give me some advice.
>
> I have started creating a web application that makes heavy use of URL GET
> variables in order to solve a problem that I have had with POST in the
> past - namely, having to refresh the document and repost the variables when
> you use the browser's back button.
>
> So I enthusiastically have embraced GET variables, but am now having a
> struggle editing the URL variable string.
>
> So this is my question: is using URL GET variables that best way to avoid
> that browser back button effect?

It can be a good way, but I believe the spec for GET based parameters
only guarantee processing of 1024 characters (this may be the wrong
number but there is a limit on the guarantee).

> I have thought about using session variable extensively, but that I am going
> to have to be unsetting them all over the place.

If you are worried about unsetting them all, maybe it would help to use
a two level array to hold your form data. Perhaps the following:

$_SESSION['formName']['email'] = $_POST[['email'];

Then when you want to clear the form you can do a simple:

unset( $_SESSION['formName'] );

HTH,
Rob.
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