user authentication

Anon

Hi Friends,

I have a header_footer.php file which I include in my index.php to show my header which has links to different options like search, registration, login etc.

Once the user is logged in I want to show different links like search,logout etc..

Any help is greatly appreciated . I am trying to buils a search engine functionality with email options.

I am using php4 on apache.

Thanks
Vipul

Anon

You can use cookies to show 2 different menu. If cookie doesn't exist, you'll include "login" menu, if cookie exists, you'll include "logout" menu.

If you can send some part of your code, we can help better i guess.

Anon

Hi,
Here is the some of my script.

I have 3 files
header_footer.php
index.php
user.php

header_footer.php has header() and footer();
this is the place where I want to check whether the user has logged in so I could show logout links.

index.php calls header() and footer(). As soon as I start my webpage based on the value from the cookie Ishould be able to show different links.

user.php has my login() where I do set cookie as soon as I log in as follows :
setcookie('user_name',$user_name,time()+2592000),'/','',0);

Please let me know if you need more information.

Thanks
Vipul

Anon

You can put a control code before sending menu to client.

<?php
If ($user_name): / If cookie exists, client must see Logout / ?>

/ Don't forget refresh cookie every time, so cookie will be expired when user didn't do anything after 3600 seconds. If you forget that, cookie will be expired after 3600 seconds, but user may be still there /

setcookie('user_name',$user_name,time()+3600),'/','',0);

<a href="logout.php">Click to Logout</a>
......other menu HTML.......

<? else: ?>

<a href="login.php">Click to Login</a>
.....other menu HTML.......

<? endif; ?>

A cookie with 3600 seconds (1 hour) is enough for me to check if user still there or not.

I hope this is what you are looking for...

Anon

I am trying to use the logic

print "$user_name";
if ($user_name)
{
//Show me logout link.
}
else
{
//Show me Login link.
}

in my header file but it always shows the logout link. But print ("$user_name")
shows null. I do cannot understand what is happening.

Please advice
Vipul

Anon

I am sorry this logic works.

Thanks a lot.
Vipul