[SOLVED] Passing a variable to an image-generating script

[alhena]

I have a script that generates an image, and I need to pass a variable to it. The catch? I don't want to put the variable into the URL, because it can be too easily manipulated. The relevant code looks something like this:

 

for ($i = 1; $i <= $j; $i++){

 

echo '<img src="image.php"> ';

 

}

 

And I want the image.php script to know what value $i has. I have tried using a temporary session variable, but the image script only recognizes the one that was last set. For example, if the for-loop runs five times, I'd get five images, all of them with 5 as the variable, which is wrong because it should (obviously) go from 1-5.

 

Any ideas how to solve this?

[bobbinsbro]

first idea that comes to my mind is to have:

 

$fh = fopen('loopIteration.txt', 'w');

$fwrite($fh, $i);

$fclose($fh);

 

inside the for loop (before you echo the img tag), and then read the contents of loopIteration.txt in image.php.

 

very likely there is a better way of doing this, but you can use this until something better is suggested.

[Prismatic]

<?php
for ($i = 1; $i <= $j; $i++){

   $_SESSION['iter'] = $i;
   echo '<img src="image.php"> ';

}  
?>

<?php
//image.php

$i = $_SESSION['iter'];
unset($_SESSION['iter']);

//other stuff
?>

[rhodesa]

there really isn't a "good" way to do it...i would just pass it via the URL and validate the data you are receiving to make sure it's within the parameters you expect.

[alhena]

Thank you all for your replies! I think I will go ahead and just do the double-checking of the data in the image script.