coldfusion threads: looping session variables + sleep

Question

hey guys I'm trying to create a timer which counts the time spent on a page using a thread heres what I have so far:

<cfset session.time=0>
<cfthread name="timer" action="run">
<cfscript>
  counter = 0;
  while (counter <9000) {
    sleep(1000);
    session.time++;
    counter ++;
} 
</cfscript>
</cfthread>

page 2:

<cfoutput>#session.time#</cfoutput>

page 2 gives me 0 every time anyone see a problem?

edit: I changed line 1 of my code to <cfset session.time=100> and now page 2 says 100, its like the stuff inside the cfscript loop isn't reassigning session.time

Answer 1

Your code works fine for me. You have got an Application.cfm page setup to enable session management i.e:

<cfapplication name="#hash(getCurrentTemplatePath())#"  
    sessiontimeout="#createTimeSpan(0,0,20,0)#" sessionmanagement="true"/>

Answer 2

This works for me.

Are you sure you are using the Developer or Enterprise edition of ColdFusion and the threads have actually kicked off? I think only those editions support multi-threading.

One way to do verity your threads working is to use cfstat - you should see one request running even though your page has returned.

Another is to write output from your spawned thread - use the code snipped below to write to System.out - ideally you'll need to have CF running as a console task to do this.

<cfset session.time=0 />

<cfthread name="timer" action="run">
<cfscript>
  counter = 0;
  while (counter <9000) {
    sleep(1000);
    session.time++;

    sys = createObject("java", "java.lang.System");
    sys.out.println("*** [DEBUG]  - #timeformat(now(),'HH:mm:ss' )# - session.time=#session.time# ");

    counter ++;
} 
</cfscript>
</cfthread>

Answer 3

Code executed inside a thread has its own scope, including session. I would set a variable within the tread and then access it from within the threads scope.

i.e. Change session.time++; to thread.time++; and then use cfthread[timer].time to get the thread's time.

Although this may not hold if you enable session management like some of the other posts discuss.