Persistent Contexts

Eternal modules

UIX allows you to save and restore the context of a module across backend restarts or page reloads. Such persistent modules are called eternal modules. To create an eternal module, simple add an .eternal.ts or .eternal.tsx extension to the module file name.

Simple example:

// file: backend/counter.eternal.ts
// this is an eternal module that is only initialized once

export const counter = $$(0);

// file: backend/entrypoint.ts
// this module is loaded with a new context each time the app backend
// is restarted

import {counter} from "./counter.eternal.ts";

counter.val++; // increments the counter value each time the backend is restarted
console.log(counter); // logs 1,2,3,4... on each backend restart

You can read more about (eternal) contexts in the chapter Functions and Contexts.

Session data

Each browser client in a UIX app is automatically bound to a unique session. You can acesss shared data for this session both from the frontend and the backend, and private data only from the backend. Both shared and private data are persisted across backend restarts. They only exist as long as the frontend session has not been expired.

The shared and private data for the current session can be accessed via the Context object:

// backend/entrypoint.tsx
export default {
    '/get-name': async (ctx) => {
        // load sharedData object for this context
        const sharedData = await ctx.getSharedData()
        // return "name" entry
        return sharedData.name
    },
    '/set-name/:name': async (ctx, {name}) => {
        // load sharedData object for this context
        const sharedData = await ctx.getSharedData()
        // set "name" entry
        sharedData.name = name;
        return name;
    }
} satisfies Entrypoint

In the same way, you can access the private data for a session on the backend with await ctx.getPrivateData(). You can store any DATEX-compatible value in the shared/private data objects.

You can also access private data in normal backend functions that have no access to a UIX context element, by passing the caller information provided by datex.meta to Context.getPrivateData:

export async function updatePrivateId(id: number) {
    // get the private data for the caller endpoint
    const privateData = await Context.getPrivateData(datex.meta);
    // update the 'id' field in the private data 
    privateData.id = id;
}

Warning

Private data is directly stored on the backend and can contain an arbitrary amount of data. In contrast, shared data is stored in the browser cookies, which are limited to a maximum storage size of 4096 bytes.

Declaring session data types

You can define the global interfaces SharedData and PrivateData for session data type safety across your entrypoints.

declare global {
    // shared session data properties, also acessible on the frontend
    interface SharedData {
        username: string
        icon?: string
    }

    // private session data properties, only acessible on the backend
    interface PrivateData {
        passwordHash: string
        uuid: string
    }
}

// ...
const sharedData = await ctx.getSharedData()
ctx.username // -> type string
ctx.nonExistingProperty // error, property does not exist!

Persistent values

As as an alternative to using eternal modules, persistent values can also be created with the eternal label

const counter = eternal ?? $$(0); // counter value gets restored from the previous state or initialized
                                  // if no previous state exists
counter.val ++; // counter gets incremented every time

For non-DATEX-native types like HTML elements, you need to use lazyEternal to make sure the type definitions are loaded:

export default await lazyEternal ?? $$(<div>Content</div>)

const customValue = await lazyEternal ?? $$(new MyCustomClass())