Sessions, files or db

[Anon]

I am using PHP4 on NT and I am wondering if someone could shed some light as to the best method for storing session data, files or db. I want to use PHP4 built-in session management. Another thing if I want to use db to store data, what do I need to set the session.save_handler to? And how does that work? Also for the files method, I noticed a new file is created in my tmp dir everytime a new session is started, do these ever get deleted automatically or do I need to do it? Thanks

[Anon]

Answering just your first question: if you have multiple servers serving the same pages, use database sessions. If it is only one computer and always will be, use files.

[Anon]

You need to set session.save_handler to 'User' in order to use databases. The file you spoke of was being created when you call session_start(); because the session.save_handler specifies which storage mechanism is to be used (default to 'Files'). Then you need to override some of the built in functions by calling session_set_save_handler and redefining the six functions that are detailed in the manual in order to open, close, read, write, destroy and garbage collection of session data. Note that is all only neccessary for database storage. There is a MySql example on this site somewhere.

Hope this helps...
Shaun