In web applications, it is often necessary to keep track of the user’s navigation history. This can be useful for implementing features like a “back” button or breadcrumb navigation. One way to achieve this is by using session storage, a web browser’s built-in storage mechanism that allows data to be stored and accessed during a user’s session on a website.

What is session storage?

Session storage is a feature of modern web browsers that allows developers to store key-value pairs of data in a user’s browser session. Unlike local storage, which persists data even after the browser is closed, session storage only retains the data for the duration of the user’s session.

Session storage is accessed through the sessionStorage object, which is available in the browser’s JavaScript environment.

Storing navigation history using session storage

To store and manage the user’s navigation history using session storage, we can use the pushState method of the History API combined with session storage.

Here’s an example of how we can push the current URL to the session storage whenever the user navigates to a new page:

const currentUrl = window.location.href;
const history = JSON.parse(sessionStorage.getItem('navigationHistory')) || [];

history.push(currentUrl);
sessionStorage.setItem('navigationHistory', JSON.stringify(history));

In this code snippet, we first retrieve the current URL using window.location.href. We then retrieve the existing navigation history from session storage and parse it from its JSON representation using JSON.parse. If no navigation history exists yet, we default to an empty array.

We then push the current URL to the history array and use JSON.stringify to convert it back to a JSON string. Finally, we store the updated navigation history back into session storage.

Retrieving navigation history from session storage

To retrieve the navigation history from session storage, we can use the following code:

const history = JSON.parse(sessionStorage.getItem('navigationHistory')) || [];

This code retrieves the navigation history from session storage, parsing it from the stored JSON string using JSON.parse. If no navigation history exists, we default to an empty array.

Conclusion

Using session storage for managing user navigation history in a web application can be a powerful tool for implementing features like a “back” button or breadcrumb navigation. By leveraging the History API and session storage, we can easily store and retrieve the user’s navigation history, enhancing the overall user experience.

#webdevelopment #sessionsstorage