This course will be retired on June 1, 2025.

Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll

Browser Persistent Data with PHP

Preview

Start a free Courses trial
to watch this video

Sign up for Treehouse

Types of Persistence

3:27 with Alena Holligan

We can store data on a server using databases and other file systems, but we can also use the user's browser to store information about a particular user even when they're not logged in to our application.

Types of Persistence

Other Courses

This course

Related Discussions

Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.

Sign up

    Related Discussions

    Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.

    Sign up

    Welcome back. 0:04
    Did you enjoy working with databases? 0:05
    Welcome back. 0:08
    I am glad you decided to keep working hard. 0:08
    I know that last course took longer than usual to get through. 0:11
    Hello and welcome, I am Elena, a PHP programmer for 0:15
    over 15 years, and a teacher here at Tree House. 0:19
    I'll be your guide through this journey into PHP. 0:22
    I'm glad you've chosen to allow tree house to help you reach your goals. 0:25
    Doesn't it make you feel special when contents speak directly to you? 0:29
    And it makes it so much easier to find things on our phones and 0:33
    computers seem to know what we are looking for, even before we ask. 0:36
    Which is to expect our phones to know our locations, when we are looking for 0:41
    a local service or trying to get directions. 0:44
    Websites like Amazon make suggestions of things we may like to see, and 0:47
    tell us when our favorite authors are releasing their latest books. 0:51
    If you plan a trip using Expedia, the website keeps track of recent searches for 0:55
    you in a scratch pad. 1:00
    This makes it easy to jump back to view different choices for the trip. 1:02
    This scratch pad is available without requiring users to be logged in. 1:06
    Most of the time, we don't even realize how much our devices or 1:11
    websites are set up to assist us until we try to use a different device or 1:14
    a new phone and all of a sudden, our history and settings aren't there anymore. 1:19
    And it's so much harder to do or find anything. 1:23
    Users have come to expect so much and it's just getting worse. 1:27
    So, what does that mean to you as a programmer? 1:31
    How can you make your own applications user aware? 1:33
    It starts with data persistence. 1:37
    The idea of storing information for a prolonged period of time. 1:40
    HTTP, the protocol for exchanging data on the internet, is a stateless protocol. 1:45
    This means, 1:50
    that web servers don't normally keep track of who's visiting each page on a site. 1:51
    Servers also don't keep track of visitors as they click from page to page. 1:57
    For example, say I visited a sites welcome page, and then I visited the contact page. 2:01
    The server doesn't keep track of that progress and 2:07
    doesn't know that I was just on the welcome page. 2:10
    There are a number of different options for working with persistent data. 2:13
    If you've worked with a database or 2:17
    any file-based data storage, you've already worked with persistent data. 2:19
    Multiple pages can access and know about this same information. 2:23
    This form of persistance works well when we want data to be stored long term or 2:28
    be utilized by multiple users. 2:33
    We can also make use of a users browser to keep track of specific information and 2:36
    tailor the users experience. 2:41
    In this course, we'll put together a story building game 2:44
    that will utilize different types of browser-based persistence. 2:47
    The games steps the user through multiple pages that ask the user for 2:51
    specific types of words. 2:55
    Those words will be used in predefined locations of the string to create an often 3:06
    comical or nonsensical story. 3:11
    At the end, a user will be able to save a story to re-read later. 3:14
    A user can also play the game again as many times as they'd like. 3:22

    You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.

    Sign up

      You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to set up Workspace

      Sign up