Passing objects through $_SESSION

[camowel]

Is it possible to put an object into a session variable?

I'm working on my user system and I'd like to make it fairly easy to manage, so, I decided to go with my new best friend, OOP, and make a class out of it.

<?php

// Users class (this is just an example, not my code)
class user {
  var $username = 'Guest';
  var $access = 1; // default guest access
  var $cur_page;
  var $last_page;

  function login() {
    // log the user in
  }

  function setpage($page) {
    $this->last_page = $this->cur_page;
    $this->cur_page = $page;
  }

  function debug() {
    echo "<pre>";
    print_r($this);
    echo "</pre>";
}

?>

Now I wanted a way to keep that object trhough all of my pages, the only think I came up with was to use a session

<?php
session_start();

require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/libs/user.class.php');

$_SESSION['user'] = (isset($_SESSION['user'])) ? $_SESSION['user'] : new user;

$current_page = 'http://'.$_SERVER['SERVER_ADDR'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
// Set the current page
$_SESSION['user']->setpage($current_page);

// Lets see whats happening inside...
$_SESSION['user']->debug();
?>

Ok, now here is where everything has started to confuse me:

Here is the output the FIRST time I visit that page:

user Object
(
    [username] => Guest
    [access] => 1
    [last_page] => 
    [cur_page] => [url]http://127.0.0.1/[/url]
)

And the second time (or any time after):

Fatal error: main() [function.main]: The script tried to execute a method or access a property of an incomplete object.
Please ensure that the class definition "user" of the object you are trying to operate on was loaded _before_ 
unserialize() gets called or provide a __autoload() function to load the class definition in
\Apache2\htdocs\setup.php on line 32

I have noooo clue whats going on, but I'm guessing its something to do with the way sessions are encoded, but I've never really looked at that kind of thing so I wouldn't know :S

Anyways... Please help if you can, thanks!

[devinemke]

your class definition call must come before session_start()

[camowel]

Oh ok...

Thanks 🙂

[omegared]

OMG thank you both I though I was the only crazy person trying to pass objects via $_SESSION. This is a different issue but since I am using the same system for passing instantiated object I was hoping you could help me out.

I was going to show a watered down version of my classes but that seems to much to read first time round. I need to be bale to take data in from a form input, stick it in a class whos function puts it in a database, and use that same class with that same data on a second page.

For some reason I cant get it do it. I seems like its passing the object just fine. if I echo($myObject) it prints out Object. However, if I echo($myObject->GetMyObject_id()) i get nothing. How do I test that what I have is not an empty class.

I managed to get this to work with a different class but this is one that dose not input any thing into the mysql database and instead just calls from it.

Any help would be much appreciated. thank you all in advance

[omegared]

Ok I feel a bit like a dork. As I was typing the above post I started to seriously consider that the reason this thing want working for me is the fact that I am trying to create an object based both on the content coming from a form AND the auto_increment id coming from the sql database.

assuming the following class
class Rqst {
var $name, $id
function Rqst($name){
//insert into ddb $name
$return_id = mysql_insert_id(); /// WILL THIS
return $return_id; /// AND THIS
}

So now I have a new question. my process_page.php
has the following line

$_SESSION['req_obj'] = new Rqst('food'); ///HELP ME HERE