Session Apache and PHP 4 w Linux 7.1

broberts00

rpm -q php says I have version 4.1.2 of PHP but phpinfo() says I have version 4.0.4 (which unfortunately apparently aren't 100% compatible). Anyway, my code has worked fine with PHP 4.2.2 on Mac OS X but is killing me on Linux (whichever version it is running):

1.php
<? session_start();?>
<?
$_SESSION['username']='bob';
?>
<html><a href="2.php">Next</a> </html>

2.php
<? session_start();?>
<html>
<? echo $_SESSION['username']?> <br>
</html>

And it echos nothing on the screen. I have created these two files in vi on Linux so there are no straggling CR/LF issues --am I missing something here??

matt_4013

First, about the version. I've never had any success installing Apache/PHP/MySQL from the RPM's. My suggestion is to just compile it yourself. Makes it easier to customize as well. There's a great tutorial on webmonkey that'll walk you through it.

About the Session variables, try using $HTTP_SESSION_VARS['username']. I'm not sure what version the $_SESSION variables were incorporated, but I think it was later than 4.0.4

Hope that helps,
Matt

broberts00

It turns out I'm running version 4.1.2 for sure after I bounced Apache again... so no need for the $HTTP_SESSION_VARS, but good insight nonetheless.

The solution it turns out is to replace all the "<?" with "<?php". Ugly -- wasn't that supposed to be "optional"?

matt_4013

There's a configuration directive which configures that. short_open_tags needs to be set to on, otherwise you'll have to use <?php 🙂