LogIN system...

r4nd0mch4r

I'm writing a user system and people should be able to login and out. This works fine but I also have a record user_active which can be set to 0 or 1 representing a user being logged in or not.
(0 being not logged in and 1 being logged in)

If the user logs out by clicking the logout link, the record is updated but if the user closes his browser the session is gone but the record is not updated. So according to this record he or she is still logged in.

How can I overcome this?

Jgreenday

you could try using a session timeout, you could set a time limit for the user be inactive, have a look at www.zend.com , some good examples on user logins on that

r4nd0mch4r

I did it! It logs me out after 5 minutes od idle time.
I did it with mktime at logon and current mktime...then I subtract them and if logon_mktime is smaller, it logs me out! :-)

But.. I have a column "status" in users table...and IF a user CLOSES the browser (doesn't use the logout link), the status stays logged_in (1)... How do I change that to not_logged_in (0)?

________

Why don't you just skip that field, and add a time field. Input the time the user login - and refresh the value when he loads a new page. Then in your query, insted of searching for 1 or 0, just search for timestamps that is less then eg. 5 mins old!

r4nd0mch4r

Yes... but I still need something that tells me if the user is logged in or logged out...

I was thinking...¸would if(session_destroy()) { log me out...) do it?

________

You must set a "timelimit" for when a user is logged in or not. If the user don't click "logout" you don't know if he is still on the site, just not browsing or if he has closed the windows.

A session got an expire function that is set to 180 minuts, så the session can't help you much there.

r4nd0mch4r

Oh, I have that... if a user is inactive for 5 minutes, the system logs him off... but... it doesn't work when a user just closes the windows.

________

Create a script that you run as a cron job every 5 minuts

r4nd0mch4r

How do I create a script that runs every once in a while?

________

That depends on where your site is hosted. If you got a control panel like CPanel, you will find a link to "Cron Jobs". Go to the cron job page and set ut the cron job.

If you got your own server, with no control panel - search google.com

r4nd0mch4r

Aha... I thought it was done by PHP... ok tnx :-)