store user input without mysql or php - javascript

I have a simple html application which displays words on a click of a next button. It fetches the words from a javascript object literal file. I want to mark some of the words as easy and some as difficult. How do I save this data from browser without using a mysql database?
can I edit the javascript object file directly from bowser?

If you want to take user input and store it permanently on your site, you'll have to employ some sort of server-side scripting. This doesn't have to be PHP, but it's probably the simplest way to do it. You can't use client-side javascript to write to a remote file directly.

If I understand correctly, you have JS object/array with words, you're modifying it and want to store it modified version permanently.
If so, then you can use "HTML5" localStorage.
This storage is per-browser. If you want to have single version shared between many users/browsers, then you will need some server-side support.

To save it on the client-side you could use cookies or local storage on supported browsers but this may not be the best approach if there are many words to keep track of.

Related

How to approach storing code snippets in a database?

for my side project, I want to make a React app that has a textarea where you can paste code snippets in it and then hit save. Then I will store it into a database linked to their user account id for later retrieval.
Are there any good approaches generally used to do something like this? For example, to turn my javascript into a string and store it in a JSON format to be sent off to firebase?
I wanted to try using encodeURI at first but I couldn't even store the code inside a variable yet. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I'd appreciate it so much!
This could be a possible duplication of Is it safe to save user created javascript in database?
Although the general consensus is the risk is not high storing it. But it is high while retrieving and injecting it in the DOM for rendering.
So you should be good storing the the data as a string. But you'll have to be updated about any possible security issues that might pop up later that needs patching.

Store Javascript variable client side

Not duplicate : I've read many questions like this and it always ended up "use PHP or server-side stuff, and watch out for injection/data manipulation".
I want to store simple stuff on the client side (save and load), like a Google Map location, and want it to stay between refresh of the page.
I don't want to use PHP or any server-side thing.
How can I proceed ?
Thanks
You can use cookies or localStorage.
If html5 is not a problem I would say localstorage is the way to go:
//set value
localStorage.setItem('todoData', this.innerHTML);
//read value
if ( localStorage.getItem('todoData') ) {
edit.innerHTML = localStorage.getItem('todoData');
}
ripped from
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/quick-tip-learning-about-html5-local-storage/ :-)
There are multiple options to store data in client side - IndexedDB, localstorage, webSQL, SessionStorage, Cookies, etc.
IndexedDB
Data can be queried efficiently. No limitation in size( but volume or
disk drivers limits the size )
It will store in Key-Object format
It will not be supported in safari browser
Support Queries
Asynchronous
localstorage
It will store value in key-value format (value should be always
String)
Synchronous
Helpful if you need to store a small amount of data
Limited size (Depends on browser)
Session Storage
If the user closes the tab, it will clear the data
You can check YDN-DB here
The key issue you have to keep in mind is you can't trust the client. If it's okay for the client to ask for any location, then it's okay for you to store the location on the client side. But you can't confirm that the value that you get back from the client side is one you have given to that client.
That's what it meant by "data manipulation" [injection is a special type of data manipulation, in that it is manipulated to include things like end quote marks if you're using it as part of a SQL query or other script.]
I highly suggest using localStorage for a few reasons:
It's supported by modern browsers,
INCLUDING IE.
You can store up to 5MB of data (10 in IE) where as a cookie is mere 4KBs
There's lots of libraries to make this easy. One of the most popular is LawnChair: http://westcoastlogic.com/lawnchair/ This will actually write to multiple places, including cookies, so that data isn't lost easily.
Also, as a note, you can't store objects with localStorage, just like you cant with cookies, however you can convert them. For example, if you want to store a Date() don't store it as new Date() store it as: '\'+Date().getTime()+'\'. Same for other objects.
Use Cookie.
How to access via javascript.
How about storing it in a cookie?
For JavaScript I recommend using jQuery, which simplifies a lot of work.
e.g. http://plugins.jquery.com/project/Cookie
Take a look at HTML5 Local Storage

client-side data storage and retrieval with html and javascript

I'm building what I am hoping to be a fairly simple, quick and dirty demo app.
So far, I've managed to build a bunch of components using only html and javascript. I know that eventually I'll hook-up a db, but at this point I'm just trying to show off some functionality.
In the page, a user can select a bunch of other users (like friends). Then they go to a separate html page and there is some sorting info based on the selected users.
So my first attempt was to put the selected users object into a cookie, and retrieve the cookie on the second page. Unfortunately, if the user changed their selection, the cookie wasn't getting updated, and my searches on StackOverflow seemed to say that deleting and updating cookies is unreliable.
I tried
function updateCookie(updatedUserList){
jQuery.cookie('userList',null);
jQuery.cookie('userList',updatedUserList);
}
but though it set the cookie to null, it wouldn't update it on the second value.
So I decided to put the selected users object into a form. Unfortunately, it looks like I can't retrieve the contents from the form on the client-side, only on the server-side.
Is there another way to do this? I've worked in PHP and Rails, but I'm trying to do this quickly and simply before building it out into something larger and am trying to avoid any server-side processing for now, which I have managed to do up to this point.
Since this is a demo, can you use HTML5? If so, you can use local storage: link text.
Another option is to use AJAX to load the other HTML page (replace whole body of the current document). Your storage variables would be stored in the <head>. This is a tightly coupled design, but again you're making a quick and dirty demo.
Is updatedUserList a string? If it's an array you might have to stringify it first:
jQuery.cookie('userList', JSON.stringify(updatedUserList))
(and of course parse it when you're retrieving it.)

Best Server-Side Data Storage Method for Simple Data

I'm coding a website that involves storing very simple data, just a very long list of names with no additional data, on the server. As this data is so simple, I don't really want to use MySQL (it would be a bit too clunky) so I'm asking what's the best way to store very simple data on the server.
I definitely would favour speed over anything else, and easy access to the data via javascript and AJAX would be very good too as the rest of the site is coded in javascript/jQuery. I don't really care if the data can be viewed freely (as it will be available anyway), as long as it can't be changed by unauthorised users.
There are a lot of things to think about with this.
Is the information the same for all users with just a single set that applies to all users out there? Or is there a separate set of data for each user?
How is the data going to be served to the client, my guess here is that you would be having a web service or otherwise that might return a JSON.
From a security standpoint, do you want someone to be able to just "grab" the data and run?
Personally I find that a database if often a better choice, but otherwise i would use an XML file. Keep in mind though that you have to be careful with loading/reading of XML files to serve web requests to prevent any potential file locking issues.
Use an XML file that is web-accessible. Then you can query the XML file from the browser if need be, and still parse/write it in PHP. You'll want to use the flock function in PHP to make sure that two instances of a page don't try to write to the file at the same time.
Write it to a file and save the data as a serialized object. This way when you read in the data it's instantly accessible as the variable type you need (array, obj, etc). This will be faster than XML parsing.

What is the best approach to store xml temporarily on the client side?

My application has a lot of decision to make before finally saving my data to the database. I am using JQuery to do this. I have succeeded in creating a moderately long xml string, due to the fact that the user will enter data that will each need to be verified.
I have made this decision base of the number of trips i expect my application to make back to the server. Currently i'm storing this xml in a hidden field. I want to know if there are better approaches? Please.
Are you passing the hidden field along through multiple form submissions? If that's the case, you should probably look into storing session variables. This really is a lot more reliable (and better practice) than keeping it all client-side.
Make sure you're still verifying the data server-side. Don't trust javascript alone to do it.
You can use the 'data' function in jQuery:
http://docs.jquery.com/Core/data#namevalue
You can store name value pairs and retrieve them when you need them.

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