[Resolved] Over use of Session - Page to Page access

[ethought]

I would prefer not to have to store so much in the Session. I just don't like having to maintain it to unset things that I only need from 1 page to the next. But some of these things I need are arrays of data. So putting them in the request in the fasion I have seen suggested

a href="bla?foo=bar"

just won't cut it. I am comming from a J2EE background and there is this nice little Request object that I can place parameters in that I need. Then I can "foward" that request to the next page.

I know PHP doesn't have the same kind of Request object, but can someone explain how I can emulate this? What is the best way to send arrays of data from one page to the next without putting it in the Session? Can I put them in the $_POST[] ?

[goldbug]

(Still using sessions to pass arrays)

Check my response to your other thread:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10269064

It should work for arrays as well.

[ethought]

Kind of unclear on how your other post helps me with this. I just need an Array to go from a.php to b.php but without using POST or GET or SESSION.

[goldbug]

You're correct, my post doesn't help with those parameters, but it points to where to look to pass arrays intact.

As far as the matter at hand goes, the ways to pass variables between pages that I can name off the top of my head:

• Get

• Post

• Session

• Cookie

• Regular file

• Database table

Your needs eliminate the first three, leaving you with the latter three. My personal preference among those final three would be the last, in a db (along with session identifier obviously).

Might I have forgotten another method?

[ethought]

Thanks goldbug. I appreciate your help. However, let me explain a scenerio, and maybe you or someone can give me the best method.

Say I have a Form, we will call it FormView.php. Now what I need to do is submit that form to an Action, will call it FormAction.php.

Ok, so now I need to display PageView.php with some data based on FormView.php and what FormAction.php retrieved from the database. But I don't want to persist this in the Session. After I leave PageView.php, the data is meaningless. I would rather not be left with the cleanup of removing Session data if I don't have to.

In J2EE, I have the ability to do this. It's called request forwarding. When I submit a form to an action, in php, I get the form attributes from $_POST, in J2EE, I get them with request.getParameter(String).

Now, normally, if I redirect to another page now, the request is lost because it is only available for the initial request from the Server. But if I forward that request, the request objects remain available to the next action or view.

I am wondering if there is something this simple in PHP. I don't want to persist this in a DB. That just adds more complexity to my pages plus extra hits to the DB that should be unecessary IMO.

[goldbug]

As far as I know, PHP doesn't have a facility like this (I've never really used J2*E much, but if I'm understanding you correctly, this is something like Server.Transfer in ASP (transfers state information transparently))

If there really is a way to do this in PHP, I'd love to know myself.

[ethought]

Originally posted by goldbug
As far as I know, PHP doesn't have a facility like this (I've never really used J2*E much, but if I'm understanding you correctly, this is something like Server.Transfer in ASP (transfers state information transparently))

If there really is a way to do this in PHP, I'd love to know myself.

Yes, exactly like that in ASP. We are on the same page now. Hoepfully someone will be able to help both of us out.

Thanks.

[yousaf931]

hi

For transfering variable from one page to another with out using sessions another thing we can used are hidden form fields.

<input type="hidden" value="<? echo $variable ?>" name="urname">

This might help.

Cheers,
yousaf FAYYAZ.

[ethought]

Originally posted by yousaf931
hi

For transfering variable from one page to another with out using sessions another thing we can used are hidden form fields.

<input type="hidden" value="<? echo $variable ?>" name="urname">

This might help.

Cheers,
yousaf FAYYAZ. [/B]

Problem with that is I am not transfering/forwarding from a form. So I am not really "POSTING" the data back to the other page. But thanks.

[yousaf931]

Read this article might help.

[man] Variable scope [/man]

Cheers,
yousaf FAYYAZ

[yelvington]

Looks to me like you want to drive a nail but have determined not to use a hammer.

The purpose of session support is to allow variables to be preserved across multiple script/page invocations.

Why do you insist on not using the tool that was designed for the purpose?

[ethought]

Originally posted by yelvington
Looks to me like you want to drive a nail but have determined not to use a hammer.

The purpose of session support is to allow variables to be preserved across multiple script/page invocations.

Why do you insist on not using the tool that was designed for the purpose?

I think we have different views on what a Session was designed for. I believe a Session was designed for persisting data throughout the life of the Session across the entire Web Application. Not all data needs to be preserved that way. Some/most data only needs to be carried from one page to another. Wich is what Post and Get are for. However, there are times, and this is the case moreso in better designed app, such as MVC, where the data is needed a bit longer. Maybe for 1 more page. But my opinion is if I use a Session for this, I am stuck with the task of releasing that from the Session. This is a maintenance cost to me. 🙂

Look at it this way. On this board, I do a search. A search action of some sort is called which process the form data. Then the results are shown. So there are possibly 3 php files that are used here. The middle (Control) part of the process is where 1 of a couple things will happen.

1. The results are stored in a Session variable for the results page.

2. The results are fowarded as a request for the results page.

#2 is the approach that is the least expensive approach since I don't have to clean up the Session after I leave the Results page or after I display the results.

I don't know if any of that made sense or not. 😉

[jpmoriarty]

"releasing from the session... is a maintenance cost to me"

while( list ( $field, $value ) = each( $_SESSION) )
{
	unset($_SESSION[$field]);
}
session_destroy();

is that too bad a maintenance cost to warrant your efforts?

[ethought]

Originally posted by jpmoriarty
"releasing from the session... is a maintenance cost to me"

while( list ( $field, $value ) = each( $_SESSION) )
{
	unset($_SESSION[$field]);
}
session_destroy();

is that too bad a maintenance cost to warrant your efforts? [/B]

That's great for when I logout. But I do have some things in the session I still need to maintain. So to me, it is a maintence cost. 🙂

Appearntly, the problem is that PHP doesn't supply me with the method I want. So I will work around it. No big deal really. I just wanted to make sure my point got accross in case there was a solution and so everyone understood what I was talking about.

[jpmoriarty]

why not exclude the ones that you need to keep then:

while( list ( $field, $value ) = each( $_SESSION) ) 
{ 
    if($field=="username" || $field=="auth_user")
    {}
    else
        unset($_SESSION[$field]); 
} 
session_destroy();