Flask Session Management: Maintaining User Login Status

This article introduces session management in Flask, with the core being the implementation of user state maintenance through the `session` object. Session management enables the server to remember user states (such as login status) during multi-page navigation, relying on cookies and a secret key for encrypted data storage. To implement this in Flask, first install Flask and set a secure secret key. User login status can be achieved in three steps: ① Login verification: Validate the account password through form submission, and if successful, store the username in `session`; ② Maintain login: Check `session` on the homepage—if present, display a welcome message; otherwise, redirect to the login page; ③ Logout: Clear the user information in `session`. Key considerations include: the secret key must never be exposed; use environment variables to store it in production; sessions expire by default when the browser is closed, and `permanent_session_lifetime` can be set to extend validity; `session` data is encrypted and stored in the user's browser cookies, only containing non-sensitive identifiers (e.g., username), so sensitive information should not be stored here. The core steps are: verifying credentials → setting session → verifying session → clearing session. `session` is suitable for short-term sessions; long-term storage requires combining with a database.