Session Variables - Some show up, some don't

aaronlinkous

Been banging my head on the desk for 2 days now, but when the user logs in, at the bottom of the success page it says

Welcome <?php echo $_SESSION['myusername']; ?>

and this pulls a the myusername variable from the login page... this all works fine and dandy...

now on another page, I used the EXACT same code minus a different variable name for a form that has a date field

it sets the variable the exact same way...

$mag_date = $POST['mag_date'];
$mag_date = str_replace('/',"",$mag_date);
$SESSION["mag_date"] = $mag_date;
session_write_close();

but nothing will display on the next page....

please help me!

NogDog

Sorry if it's obvious, but you never know: did you do a session_start() on each page that is writing to and/or reading from the $_SESSION array?

aaronlinkous

yes. I also put in the php error codething that is talked about all over this forum for sessions and what not and it wouldn't even output anything

igorlopez

Hi,

I am using sessions quite extensively but have not used the following function

session_write_close();

explicitly but from reading the manual it should work even though it is not necessary.
How are you handling the session data?
I found it convenient to set it up to use my mySQL database which made it easy to monitor the session data from within mysql.
Otherwise it could be good to print the $SESSION variables in those places where it misbehaves, both before and after the assignment.

print_r($_SESSION);

aaronlinkous

igor: I just tried the print variable and nothin :/

here is the full code if it helps

supposed to display the variable

<?php
session_start();
if(!session_is_registered('myusername')){
header("location:index.php?error=yes");
}

?>
<div id="content_left"><h1>Add a New Month</h1></div>
<div id="content_right"><h1>Step 2 - Article Info for month of <?php print_r($_SESSION['mag_date']); ?></h1>
<br />
<p><span class="green">* </span><span class="small">required</span></p>
<form name="add1" id="add1" action="scripts/add2_script.php" method="POST">
Article Title <span class="green">*</span><br />
<input type="text" name="art_title" id="art_title" class="required input_text"  minlength="5"/><br /><br />

Article Author <span class="green">*</span><br />
<input type="text" name="art_author" class="required input_text"  minlength="5"/><br /><br />

Article Blip <span class="green">*</span><br />
<input type="text" name="art_blip" class="required input_text"  minlength="5"/><br /><br />

Article Section <span class="green">*</span><br />
<select class="required input_select" name="art_section">
<?php
include("notouchy/dbinfo_insert.inc.php");
mysql_pconnect($host,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");

$sql = "SELECT * FROM section_table ORDER BY section_id";

$rs = mysql_query($sql);
?>
<option value=""></option>
<?php
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($rs))
{
	if($row['section_name'] == "Misc" || $row['section_name'] == "Outside Looking In" || $row['section_name'] == "In the Dog House"|| $row['section_name'] == "Hidden Treasures"|| $row['section_name'] == "Health and Fitness"|| $row['section_name'] == "For Heavens Sake"|| $row['section_name'] == "Dollars and Sense"|| $row['section_name'] == "Behind the Curtain"|| $row['section_name'] == "Beauty Report"){
	echo "<option value='".$row['section_name']."'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;".$row['section_name']."</option>\n";
	}
	elseif($row['section_name'] == "Regular Features" || $row['section_name'] == "Columnist"){
	echo "<option value=''>-- ".$row['section_name']."</option>\n";
	}
	else {
	echo "<option value='".$row['section_name']."'>".$row['section_name']."</option>\n";
	}
}
?>
</select><br /><br />

Article External URL<br />
<input type="text" name="art_external_url" class="url input_text" /><br /><br />

Article Story<br />
<textarea class="input_textarea" name="art_content" minlength="50"></textarea><br /><br />

Add More Articles <input type="checkbox" id="more" name="more" /><br /><br />

<input class="submit" type="submit" value="Next Step"/>

</form>
<br /><br /><br />

</div>

and where it gets set

<?php
$target_path = "../../covers/";
$final_target_path = "covers/";

$mag_date = $_POST['mag_date'];
$mag_date = str_replace('/',"",$mag_date);
$_SESSION["mag_date"] = $mag_date;
session_write_close();

$mag_title = trim($_POST['mag_title']);
$mag_title = nl2br($mag_title);
$mag_title = stripslashes($mag_title);
$mag_title = htmlentities($mag_title, ENT_QUOTES);

if ((($_FILES["mag_cover_url"]["type"] == "image/png")
|| ($_FILES["mag_cover_url"]["type"] == "image/jpeg")
|| ($_FILES["mag_cover_url"]["type"] == "image/pjpeg"))
&& ($_FILES["mag_cover_url"]["size"] <= 2097152))
  {


$target_path = $target_path . $mag_date . basename( $_FILES['mag_cover_url']['name']); 

if(move_uploaded_file($_FILES['mag_cover_url']['tmp_name'], $target_path)) {

$final_target_path = $final_target_path . $mag_date . basename( $_FILES['mag_cover_url']['name']); 

include("../notouchy/dbinfo_insert.inc.php");
mysql_pconnect($host,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");

mysql_query("INSERT INTO magazine_table (mag_cover_url, mag_date, mag_title) VALUES('$final_target_path', '$mag_date', '$mag_title')") or die(mysql_error());
header("location: ../login_success.php?p=add2");
}
else{
    echo "There was an error uploading the file, please try again!";
}
}
else {
	header("location: ../login_success.php?p=error");
	}
?>

igorlopez

Just a few comments.
The first one is your usage of

if(!session_is_registered('myusername'))

which when checking the manual says:

Note: If $SESSION (or $HTTP_SESSION_VARS for PHP 4.0.6 or less) is used, use isset() to check a variable is registered in $SESSION.

My second comment is that it would be good to print the whole session variable, i.e.

session_start();
print_r($_SESSION);

just to get a feeling of what is inside the session variable.
And my last comment is bearing into NogDogs question,

did you do a session_start() on each page that is writing to and/or reading from the $_SESSION array?

I am not seeing any session_start(); in the section where you are assigning $SESSION['mag_date']

$mag_date = $_POST['mag_date'];
$mag_date = str_replace('/',"",$mag_date);
$_SESSION["mag_date"] = $mag_date;

but this is maybe done in the background...
Other than this I don't know what you can check into.
Maybe put in a print_r after mag_date is assigned

$mag_date = $_POST['mag_date'];
$mag_date = str_replace('/',"",$mag_date);
$_SESSION["mag_date"] = $mag_date;
print_r($_SESSION);
session_write_close();

aaronlinkous

omg.... i knew I had session start on every page, but I completely forgot about the script pages... thank you!! i'll also do those other changes