Session ID

In computer science, a session identifier, session ID or session token is a piece of data that is used in network communications (often over HTTP) to identify a session, a series of related message exchanges. Session identifiers become necessary in cases where the communications infrastructure uses a stateless protocol such as HTTP. For example, a buyer who visits a seller's site wants to collect a number of articles in a virtual shopping cart and then finalize the shopping by going to the site's checkout page. This typically involves an ongoing communication where several webpages are requested by the client and sent back to them by the server. In such a situation, it is vital to keep track of the current state of the shopper's cart, and a session ID is one way to achieve that goal.