can't unset an array in a session variable

mmoranuk

I'm fairly new to sessions so please bear with me...

I'm happy with start_session(), unset($_SESSION['my_var']), etc. when I'm using single variables. However I hit problems when my_var is an array. I can't seem to unset it.

<?php
session_start();
unset($SESSION['user_count']);
unset($SESSION['user_array']);

?>

...HTML stuff...
loop $i times then end loop....

$SESSION['user_array'] = $user_array;
$SESSION['user_count'] = $i ;

I can then access the session variables in other pages as expected. However if I reload this first page, the user_count gets unset but the user_array adds the data on top of the old data (ie, doesn't clear the contents of user_array first).

Am I being stupid? Thanks for any help

LordShryku

Just empty it instead of unsetting it. Or empty it before unsetting it.

<?php
session_start();
unset($_SESSION['user_count']);
$_SESSION['user_array'] = array();
?>

tsinka

Hi,

avoid using a session array key as variable name in a script, especially if register_globals is set to on. That can lead to problems since you only can trustfully rely on the manipulated session data after the script finished (and the session data has been written).

One solution is to add a prefix to the session array keys like sess_????.

Do you have the same problem if you use e.g.

$arrUser instead of $user_array ?

Thomas

mmoranuk

Thanks guys - both seem to work. I now have:

$_SESSION['user_array'] = $arrUser;

in the main body of the code and it works OK.

Thanks for the help. I'm now going to rewrite all my non-session code using sessions (should keep me busy)

Mark