Sessions in Templates

Pizzaman

Hi everyone,

I am having problems here. I am creating this php template, and on it is a form which allows users to login.

Now I don't know where to do the session_start() command.

If I do it within the template before the <html> tag, then it says that the php code will not propogate to all the sites that use this template.

If I do it within the html template... then I run into the:

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by ...

If I do decide to start it in the editable region of all my pages that use the template... same warning as above because the template HTML has already started.

I need help! Where do I put this session_Start() without the errors?

-Pizzaman

drew010

i dont know what you mean by 'the php code will not propagate to all the sites that use the template' but if you are using session based cookies, session_start() must be called before any output is sent (html, spaces, newlines) because it sends a cookie, which is part of the response headers which come before the webpage.
basically you want session_start to be in a place where it will always come before any html.

bretticus

You may have better luck using the output buffering functions first ob-start However, I'm with drew010 on the "propagation thing", can you show an example script?

Pizzaman

Ya..

<?php session_start(); ?>

<html>
<head>
<!-- TemplateBeginEditable name="doctitle" -->
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<!-- TemplateEndEditable -->
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<!-- TemplateBeginEditable name="head" -->
<!-- TemplateEndEditable -->
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript">
<!--
function MM_preloadImages() { //v3.0
  var d=document; if(d.images){ if(!d.MM_p) d.MM_p=new Array();
    var i,j=d.MM_p.length,a=MM_preloadImages.arguments; for(i=0; i<a.length; i++)
    if (a[i].indexOf("#")!=0){ d.MM_p[j]=new Image; d.MM_p[j++].src=a[i];}}
}

...

So the only PHP code is the first line. The rest is my template code. Now if I save this in Macromedia Dreamweaver MX... I get the following warning:

"You have added or changed code outside the <html> tag. This change will not be copied to documents based on the template unless you insert this tag in the <head> section of your template:

Alas, I did what it suggested, put the php session code under the header of the template, and got the same Cannot send session cookie error.

-Pizzaman

bretticus

Dang, so this is a Dreamweaver problem afterall? If you don't want DW screwing up your PHP code, don't use templates with it. I love DW for HTML layout (wouldn't use anything else) but I've never been impressed with it for PHP code. This problem just supports my opinion. Talking about templates without mentioning these were gui application "aides" and really have nothing to do with PHP might have saved you some time.