[Resolved] session problem

sharyn

I am trying to open a named pipe and saving the file pointer using a session variable. However, while other session variable seem to be saved just fine, the session variable for the file pointer doesn't get saved.

if (($_SESSION['Pipe_open'] == 0 )
{
  if  ( !( $_SESSION['Pipe_fp'] = fopen("/Users/administrator/Sites/maps/PipeFile","w") ) )
    echo "ERROR :: Can't open PipeFile<br>";
  else
    $_SESSION['Pipe_open'] = 1;  

}

$Pipe_fp_check = $_SESSION['Pipe_fp'];

if ( !($Pipe_fp_check) ) echo "Error :: pipe not open<br>";

The first time around, the pipe gets opened and everything checks out fine. The next time around, it doesn't re-open the pipe, but the Pipe_fp session variable is not set anymore.

Can anyone help? Thanks a million

-sharyn

rachel2004

You have an extra opening parenthese in your first line of code. Also, you may have something later on in your code that is unsetting the $_SESSION variable.

sharyn

oh oops. I introduced that error when I typed it into the thread.. the parentheses are actually balanced. I don't see that I am ever resetting the $_SESSION variable after I initially set it

rachel2004

I'm not sure if you need to have $SESSION['Pipe_fp'] set for later use in your script, but if not, try this:

if ($_SESSION['Pipe_open'] == 0 )
{
	if  (!(fopen("/Users/administrator/Sites/maps/PipeFile","w"))) {
    	echo "ERROR :: Can't open PipeFile<br>";
    	$Pipe_fp_check = FALSE;
  	} else {
    	$_SESSION['Pipe_open'] = 1;  

        $Pipe_fp_check = TRUE;
  	}
} 

if (!($Pipe_fp_check)) 
{
	echo "Error :: pipe not open<br>";
}

sharyn

Rachael,

I need the file pointer because I'm going to write to the file later on.

I am setting the check variable to see if the file pointer is still active when I call the php file the next time around. The session var Pipe_open stays 1 when set, but the file pointer session var gets set back to 0 or NULL.

Can one set file pointers to session variables?

rachel2004

You probably want to agree upon using either 0 or NULL in your conditional checks (as they are not the same) and then simply use isset() in your conditional check:

if (isset($_SESSION['Pipe_open'])) {
    // do something with fp
} else { // pipe is not set or is NULL
    // do code to open pipe and initialize fp
}

sharyn

ok, I guess I can't assign file pointers to session variables... time to move on...

from the manual :

Warning
Some types of data can not be serialized thus stored in sessions. It includes resource variables or objects with circular references (i.e. objects which passes a reference to itself to another object).