[RESOLVED] avoiding session variables - how?

promeus

Hi all,

I've currently discovered the awesom power of session variables - and I'd like to leave such power to the Gods...

Question: I have to pass information from one php page to another, and not by a form. They will click a link to another page, and when they do I'd like a variable to be sent along. I don't want to use a GET with the data in the URL, and I think using a post (if I could figure out how to outside of a form) is probably a bad idea. As as mentioned, I want to avoid session variables (I use them for login-state stuff and that's it). I figure I could probably use argv[] to call the other php script, but if there's a better, more elegant way I'd appreciate it if someone would give me a clue.

Cheers!

brendan2b

Im not quite sure what you mean but this is what I would do instead of using sessions.

On your first page you have a form lets say the only field is username.

<form action="page2.php" method="post">
<input name="username" type="text">
</form>

On your second page create a variable and set it equal to the username value with whatever php code you may have. This is somewhat unecessary but it keeps your information in a new variable.

$username=$_POST['username'];

Then create a hidden field containing that value in your html. You can also substitute the variable $username instead of using the post method.

 <form name="hiddenform">
<input name="username" value=" <?php  echo $_POST['username']; ?>">
</form>

In the hidden field set the value equal to the variable. Put that on the second third, and fourth pages if necessary. You can keep this consistent on each page, but one caution is altered data. There are other ways. Ways much more advanced than I am. This is what I have used in the past. I hope this helps in regards to not using sessions. : ]

promeus

Thanks ya i can do it via a form, but what i was really going for was something like this:

Page1.php:
$varname_page1 = "yahoo"
function_to_call_page2("yahoo");

Page2.php:
$varname_page2 = $varname_page1
print "$varname_page1";

The output would be "yahoo" on page2. I'm thinking I could just merge the 2 pages together, but then I run into the issue where you have to essentially print everything on the same page in 1 fell swoop: ie., you can't have 1/2 the page load, then click "ok" and have the rest of the page load from the same executing php script.

Thanks man,
Promeus

promeus

I don't think there's a way to do what I want without using either a form or a session ID. I'm going to reduce the amount of data that I'd store in my session ID and make it an index to an array representing the number of items in my table, then the next page will just load from that. All good in the hood.

I suppose the real answer is "use java".

brendan2b

Well there you go looks like your heading in the right direction. Again, I do not know of a way to do it without forms or sessions, but my guess is there probably are other ways. Best of luck to you.

Brendan

Weedpacket

Anything you come up with would be either functionally identical to sessions or to using forms - so why bother reinventing the wheel?

promeus wrote:
I'm going to reduce the amount of data that I'd store in my session ID

There is no data stored in a session ID; it's just a meaningless (though unique) label.

If you mean you're going to reduce the amount of session data, by storing most of it in a database, then there are more elegant ways of doing that than what you're suggesting, and that is to write your own session handler.