Using HTML5 you can store data into user’s browser. Before HTML5, there was only one way to store data using cookies. This web storage stores data in key/value pair. You can use this technique to store data offline.
How to check that browser supports web storage?
if(typeof(Storage) !== “undefined”)
{
// Browser supports web storage. So you can use local and session storage
}
Else
{
// Browser does not support web storage.
}
There are two types of the web storage
- Local Storage
- Session Storage
Local Storage
You can store data into local storage like
localStorage.key = “value”;And you can retrieve it as
var localStorageValue = localStorage.key;This storage is persisted even you closes and reopen the browser.
Session Storage
This storage is same as the local storage. One thing differs from local storage is that, the data will be lost if user closes the browser. So if you want to store data per session, go with this storage.
You can store data as follows
sessionStorage.key = “value”;After you can retrieve as
var sessionStorageValue = sessionStorage.key;How to check/debug web storage is working or not?
Developer tools of the browser will show data stored into the web storage. Following image taken from w3schools.com describes the where you can find the web storage.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
You can check your browser supports how many HTML5 features just opening http://html5test.com/ into your browser.
