Getting session vars from ASP session?

sroughley

Hey all.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here goes. I'm currently writing an app in ASP with DreamweaverUD-MX (I know, I know. Company choice not mine), but due to the limitations of ASP I have been writing several components in PHP.

Herein lies the problem. Some of the PHP components are in the admin directory and are capable of updating the database and so need to be protected along with the ASP pages that are using Dreamweaver ASP authentication. I know that I could write a PHP authentication system, but I don't know how happy the users would be with having to login repeatedly whenever the application switches between ASP and PHP. So, I am wondering if it is possible to get the ASP session vars using PHP? If so, how? I am not very familiar with ASP, so I am a little confused here.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards.

Steve.

Xoid

hmm... I've never had a need for this before... but could you create the session using ASP then record the session data to a database then read the session data using PHP?

then again, wouldn't it be easier to port the system to PHP instead of using ASP and PHP?

hth

DeltaRho2K

I agree, this is a bad way to do business... but having said that, you may have to somehow combine the codes...

I assume you are using IIS with ASP, mySQL and php.

That being the case, you may have to write a session code in ASP, and php. This then draws the problem of how to get each to identify the variables?!? Well, you could get the posted variables in ASP, then use the function to strip off the ampersand (&) and then just add the dollar sign ($) to the beginning for php to recognize it. (or vice versa, depending on which one you are more comfortable with)

You could also just define separate php and asp variables to set and read the sessions.

As long as you declare the ASP and PHP separately, I would think the preprocessors would each know how to do this independent of each other.

I have never worked in an environment that required both though, so I couldn't help, but maybe something I have said here will spark something in your knowledge bank... Good luck!

barand

Could you pass them as cookies?

DeltaRho2K

I think php and asp look at cookies a little differently (I could be mistaken though, it wouldn't be the first time ;-) so this may not be a viable option. Besides, what if the cookies are turned off on a user's machine? This just opens a totally different can of worms... I personally would avoid.

Hey sroughley, when you say "Due to the limitations of ASP", which limitations are you speaking of specifically as being those the hold you up? Is it the ACCESS DB size limitations? If so, tell your company to spring for an MSSQL Server ;-) Maybe that will prompt them to switch to mySQL or postgresSQL...

LOL

~DR

sroughley

Cheers for the help people, and sorry about the late reply (busy, busy!).

In answer to your questions regarding the why's and whatnots about the situation, I have a firm background in PHP and JSP, but everyone in my present company uses VB (for application development and web development), so I can't really go writing apps that no-one understands.

The reason I find VB limiting, is the sheer lack of functions for processing strings, arrays, databases (though we do run SQL Server, if the client is willing to fork out for the rediculous hosting charges). It just takes sooooooo damned long to do in ASP what can take minutes in PHP. As well as the infuriating problems with not being able to get form or query string elements in the same script as performing a binary read. Not to mention VB's bizzarre structure, it often feels like I am programming a language developed by a small beligerant child. Etc, etc, etc.

So, to get round these problems, I often write small components (Classes) in PHP, such as Classes that upload an image and store the image path in a database along with other form data, that can be bolted on to the app, without the other developers needing to know anything about PHP accept how to instantiate an object and pass it variables etc. We are slowly migrating to ASP.NET, which looks alot more promising, so this may soon be over. But, in the mean time, I have the session problem.

The thing is, with the web developers here using DreamweaverMX, no one seems to really know exactly how ASP controls session vars. I can not find any cookies that are created by the sessions, and it doesn't appear that query strings are being passed. And I do need to be able to maintain session state while moving between PHP and ASP. There must be a way to do it. So the main question is 'Where are the ASP session vars?' and how do I grab them with PHP? I'll have a think about the points you guys have already raised, there should be a solution in here somewhere. But in the mean time, any more thoughts about the solution are greatly appreciated.

Regards.

Steve.