Sessions

PHP and MySQL - Sessions

Sessions Building Applications That Keep State Managing State in the Client Tier Cookies Session Management Over the Web PHP Session Management Overview Starting a Session Using Session Variables Ending a Session Functions for Accessing Sessions in PHP Session Management Without Cookies Encoding the session ID as a GET variable Turning off cookies Garbage Collection Configuration of PHP Session Management Case Study: Adding Sessions to the Winestore Improving the Client Entry <form> The Validation Script Improving error messages Saving last-entered values as a session variable The Client Entry <form> Script Displaying previously entered values Displaying error messages The final client entry script When to Use Sessions Reasons to Use Sessions Personalization Reasons to Avoid Sessions Need for centralized session store Bookmark restrictions

Stateful web database applications can be built using sessions, and session management is the topic of this tutorial. In this tutorial we:

Discuss how sessions are managed in the stateless environment of the Web and introduce the three characteristics of server-side session management
Introduce cookies for storing state
Show how to use and configure the PHP session management library
Use PHP session management to improve the client entry <form> in the winestore case study
Provide a brief list of reasons for using, or avoiding, session management over the Web