end session when user exits or leaves

Uchiha_Sasuke

hi, i have a question about session controle

how would i do a action in PHP that goes off when a user exits the window, or leaves to a new site

this is what the action will be when they leave/exit

if ($validvc=="deathbladedojo") {
mysql_query("UPDATE members SET logged='offline' WHERE username='".$_COOKIE["dbdusername"]."'");}

this is to make the user's status be offline when they leave or login

More Information:
i'm a newbie at MySQL and PHP, but none the less, it's something i've always wanted to learn, and i'm really very excited about it, ^_
i have been learning MySQL and PHP for about 4 or 5 days now, and with that knowledge, i've been doing a prject i've been wanting to do for over a year now, make a Message Board, and that is what this support question's answer will be going to, if you wish to view the board...well, the layout is ugly right now, becuase i'm focusing on coding first, then when thats done, i'll do layout and style...here it is if you need/want to view it
http://forums.deathbladedojo.com/

thank you

sneakyimp

I don't think I can answer your question, but perhaps this page might:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.session.php

in general, a server keeps track of each user with a session id. you can explicitly destroy a session by calling session_destroy(), but you generally can't reliably call PHP pages when a page is unloaded without javascript or something.

aside from explicitly telling the server to destroy a session, i think you might be able to set the session expiration to something pretty short (like 10 minutes or something) and write your code to continually refresh the session as long as a user visits pages.

does anyone more experienced have any advice? i'm not really clear on how the server deals with session data.

Uchiha_Sasuke

well, that could be useful, but, then, if they exit/leave before the time has expired (and i'd hate to have it short loop it's self) then it will still say the user is logged in...

does anybody else have a go?

btw, thank you for your information, i'll keep that in mind

XeRoZeN

If you read this article or some sort on PHPBuilder.com you would've known

You can't always explicitily end sessions with session_destroy due to the fact that some users with close the browser without clicking on [sign out]/[log out] or whatever. so you should always set your session lifetime to 0 in your PHP.ini config file to destroy the session once the users has 'disconnected' from your page.

so basically your going to have to edit your php.ini..I'm still looking if theres another way.

Uchiha_Sasuke

well...i don't really use session's and all that, all i do is update the users account information to online when they log in

and i don't have a clue what my php.ini is, lol

Uchiha_Sasuke

alright, after learning more about sessions and all, i've updated my whole site to be session baised...

so, i understand that a session can't be destroyed unless commanded too, but that's not what i need, what i need is to determine if a session holder is leaving the site in particular, and if so, then update a table row in my database...

or actually, all i need is to determine when the user's window is going to a new page, be it on the main site, or a different one..

sneakyimp

you might try some javascript in your pages...perhaps an unload function?