Linq To Twitter clearing IOAuthCredentials credentials

Question

I have a piece of functionality that creates a voice message and if authenticated through Twitter, will post a message to their Twitter account. I want the ability for the user to turn off the message posting to Twitter if they desire, so I was curious if there was a way to clear the credentials. I followed an example from the LinqToTwitter documentation:

IOAuthCredentials credentials = new SessionStateCredentials();

        if (credentials.ConsumerKey == null || credentials.ConsumerSecret == null)
        {
            credentials.ConsumerKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["twitterConsumerKey"];
            credentials.ConsumerSecret = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["twitterConsumerSecret"];
        }

        auth = new WebAuthorizer
        {
            Credentials = credentials,
            PerformRedirect = authUrl => Response.Redirect(authUrl)
        };

        if (!Page.IsPostBack && Request.QueryString["oauth_token"] != null)
        {
            auth.CompleteAuthorization(Request.Url);
        }

        if (auth.IsAuthorized)
        {
            twitterCtx = new TwitterContext(auth);
            Session["TwitterContext"] = twitterCtx;
            twLoginButton.Text = "Logout of Twitter";
        }

I've tried the following code and variations:

credentials = null;

or

SessionStateCredentials credentials = Dispose();

But it shows errors for each of these. I was hoping someone could guide me in clearing out

IOAuthCredentials credentials = new SessionStateCredentials();

which is what I think needs to happen. Any advice would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The SessionStateCredentials type has properties that use Session state as their backing store. Here are a few options, with pros and cons of each:

1. Set the properties to null. e.g.

   credentials.ConsumerKey = null; credentials.ConsumerSecret = null; // etc ...

This is a little ugly, though you could write a method to encapsulate the statements.

1. Clear out the individual Session state items. e.g.

   Session.Remove("ConsumerKey"); Session.Remove("ConsumerSecret"); // etc ...

This is more explicit. However, it breaks the existing encapsulation and forces you to obtain a reference to the current session.

1. Derive a new class from SessionStateCredentials with a Clear method that performs the steps from one of the previous methods. This might be the cleanest option.

Here's a link to the SessionStateCredentials class so you can see the internal implementation:

http://linqtotwitter.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest#LinqToTwitter/OAuth/SessionStateCredentials.cs