(Django) Value set in session disappears after i render the request through the same view a second time

Question

Here's what's happening:

1. HTML Template "A" has a form that passes a variable with name="var1" to URL1. URL1 sends the request to VIEW1. VIEW1 then checks for and thereafter "gets" the "var1" variable successfully, and sets it in a session variable (request.session['variable'] = "var1"

2. VIEW1 then renders the request to HTML Template "B", which has another form that passes a variable with name="var2" to URL1 again. URL1 sends the request to VIEW1 again. This time, "VAR1" is no longer available to "GET", but "VAR2" is. However, when i print the session variable (print(request.session['variable])), it no longer exists.

My question is: Does passing a request back into the same VIEW a second time clear out any session variables you have set on the first pass? It certainly appears to be the case, but i can't figure out why.

Before, I was using a global dictionary variable to store everything in, and it worked well, but it would expire if i didn't navigate quickly enough. Accordingly, i switched to storing my dictionary in the session.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Finally figured this out after reading through the Django documentation again.

I was using dictionaries in my session variables, and was only modifying the contents of the dictionaries instead of the dictionaries themselves.

By default, Django only saves the session data if you modify the variables themselves. Once i created and set SESSION_SAVE_EVERY_REQUEST = True in my settings file, the issue was resolved!