Calling session_start() only for users who have logged in

travelbuff

Hi all:

I would like to only start a session for users who have visited a login page. What would be ideal would to be able to:

if (isset($_SESSION['user_name'])) {
 session_start();
}

but I know I can't do that because you can't check for a session vairable if no session has been started, right?

So I guess the option is to set a cookie for users who have logged in and then check for the prescence of the cookie before calling session_start().

BTW, my whole point is to not start sessions for users who haven't logged in for two reasons: search engine compatibility and resource conservation (my site is very, very busy but only few users need to login and carry session variables with them).

Thanks

Hamsterpants

Hi Mark,

Not sure if I am missing something, but can you not just start the session once the user has logged in, i.e. on the page you redirect the user after logging in, start the session then.

Dill

travelbuff

Dill:

I know - my concern is subsequent pages they visit.

Thanks

Mark

Hamsterpants

ok, dont you just check one of the variables set for that session, e.g. if (isset($_SESSION['ssername']))

New to PHP, so I hope I understand what you are talking about and not just wasting your time.

Dill

Cailean

hmmmm, you can't check for a session variable with starting the session but the point of checking the session variable is to know wether or not a session is needed...

Since you don't have many 'users' who log in, maybe using a cookie to start the session?

normal page:
--> check for cookie
--> yes: start_session()
--> no: continue as normal

or you could just store the user variables in the cookie and set it to expire at session end.