Objects as session variables

Anon

I'm trying to use an object in a session variable in PHP4, but I keep getting the following error:

Fatal error: The script tried to execute a method or access a property of an incomplete object. Please ensure that the class definition search of the object you are trying to operate on was loaded before the session was started in c:\windows\desktop\workfile.php on line 18

So I interpret this to mean that I have to include the class definition before calling session_start initially, but i can't seem to do this without getting this error:

Warning: Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at HtmlElement.obj:2) in c:\windows\desktop\search.php on line 6

So what am I supposed to do to use objects as session variables?

I appreciate your help,

Sonny

Anon

Well, the message seems clear : you have output something in HtmlElement.obj at line 2, which prevents to send headers after it. Be sure to remove all spaces and carriage returns outside PHP sections.

Anon

That doesn't address the problem. It wants the class definition included before the session begins, when i do that I get the "headers already sent" message. Catch 22?? Can anyone who uses objects in sessions please help me?

Anon

hi,
I have been facing the problem of acessing object methods stored as session variables. I was searching the forum for a solution when I found that you had faced exactly the same problem - error saying trying to access incomplete object. If you could tell you how you went about getting around this, it would be great!

I need this desparately!!

thanks in advance...

Rajiv

Sonny wrote:

Anon

Hey Rajiv,

That was quite a long time ago. :-) I haven't done any PHP since January, as I have switched to Java. Nevertheless, I believe the problem was in PHP's session handling mechanism for objects. What I had to do was redeclare a new object of the same type in the page where I wanted to recover the object and read the session object into that one. That way you get the data back but the new object also has the methods...so you have your object that you originally put into the session.

The PHP authors were supposed to fix this problem, but I guess that never happened? Anyhow, PHP is not a truly object oriented language and the authors have no intention of making it one from what I have read. In that sense you may be better served with Java.

Regards,

Sonny

Anon

Hi Sonny,
Thanks for the quick reply! Well I am doing some PHP as part ot a project at my lab and will be comparing it with a servlets implementation. I have been breaking my head for the past few weeks with this problem since all documentation says it is possible to serialize objects in PHP 4

I tried your workaround but it dint seem to work. How exactly did u read the session object into the newly declared object - was it by parameter passing? If you could send me some sample code or elaborate as to how your copied the object contents, that would be great! Would go a long way in helping me getting over this hurdle. Do you have any idea if that works for nested objects??

Thanks a lot for the help!

Rajiv

Anon

Hi Rajiv,

I was very frustrated with that too. There are actually a couple of other posts you can find by searching that show some code how to do it. That's how I determined it had to be done that way. I think I just set the new object variable equal to the restored one.

I actually tried it with nested classes also..it never worked. This was the start of me getting tired of PHP.

Also make sure you are using the lateset version of PHP...who knows, they may have fixed it! :-)

Anon

Like u guys I've been face the same problem, using PHP 4.0.6... I think the way is Java... But if u know something about it, I'd appreciate it...

Thank u very much

Marcello Junior