wierd session behaviour

stew

ok...

I have made a pretty complex community based website, that is controlled by the index.php file (all requested go to it). The index.php includes a session.php which contains functions like isLoggedIn(), getSessionUser() and alike... however, when i post data from a form to say bookmark.php which updates a database table and returns the user to the refering page, the $_SESSION['user'] variable empties.

I haven't experience the $SESSION['user'] emptying when a request is made to the index.php file, by always when a request is made to any other file. When isLoggedIn() is called from another file (eg bookmark.php) it returns true.

function isLoggedIn()
{
   return !(!isset($_SESSION['user'));

}

print_r($_SESSION['user']); /// prints stdClass Object ( [lastClicks] => 1130694728 ) - should be a whole lot mote data and the object should be of type User, not stdClass

anyone know why this might be happening?

stew

toplay

I don't fully understand what you're doing. However, if your trying to save objects in sessions, I hope that you remembered to serialize() them (and unserialize() before you use them). The class must be there (defined) before you can unserialize. See:
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/language.oop.serialization.php

If you want the isLogedIn() function to return true if the "user" index is there, then just return the result from isSet(). Example:

return isset($_SESSION['user']); // True if set (user logged in), or False if not

Remember, every page has to have a session_start() before you access $_SESSION.

🙂

stew

update...

a form is being posted to bookmark.php (entire contents listed)

require_once("includes.php");
if(!checkSession())
{
    print "bad session";
    die;
}

if(isLoggedIn())
{
    $user = getSessionUser();
    $bk = new bookmark();
    $bk->setTitle($_POST["title"]);
    $bk->setUrl($_SERVER["HTTP_REFERER"]);
    $bk->userID = $user->ID;
    updateOnline();
    if(saveBookmark($bk))
    {
        header("Location: ".$_SERVER["HTTP_REFERER"]."&sid=".session_id());
        exit;
    }
}

When the script is called the $user is created successfully with all correct details. The saveBookmark function stores the session user's ID in the database correctly.
when the header function is called the same valid sid is attached to the URI. when the page is forwarded to the refering page the isLogged in function (listed above) returns true; but contains an stdClass object instead of a User Object.

i hope this makes my query a bit easier to understand!

toplay

No, it's still not clear to me. Only you know what you're talking about as to stdClass object, saveBookmark, etc. since it's unique to your code.

What I can share is that there is no point of passing the session id like that unless you are specifically looking for it in $_GET['sid']. PHP's default session name is PHPSESSID (unless you changed it to use "sid").

If a user has allowed cookies, then a session cookie will be created and the PHP "SID" constant will be blank/null. When a session cookie can't be created, PHP sets the "SID" constant to contain the session name and ID. Also, if you have "session.use_trans_sid" php.ini setting on, PHP will put the session name and ID in all your links automatically (so the session won't get dropped/lost). So, on redirects like you're doing with the header() location, you should add the SID constant in the URL like so:

header('Location: ' . $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] . '?' . SID);
exit;

This is only really needed for user's who don't get a session cookie created, but since PHP will assign the SID null when a session cookie is created, then it can be used in this fasion without the need for any condition checking.

stew

the problem was that the $user object had lost its association with the class definition... i moved the updateOnline() function call to the line after the require_once... at it appears to have solved my problem ...somehow... 🙂

toplay

Yeah, like I really know what your updateOnline() function does.

Well, I'm glad you fixed it yourself. I recommend you explain things better in forums in the future.

Please mark this topic thread as resolved.

Happy coding.