Help With Sessions

[Walker]

Hi,

 

I'm semi-new to PHP. I can't get sessions to work, and I'm starting to think that my professor has something set up wrong in the php.ini file. I've looked all over the web, done half a dozen tutorials, and searched through a 50 different forums, and it still doesn't work.

 

 

 

Finally, I copied and pasted some code from the php.net documentation and it still won't work.

 

 

 

Here's the code:

 

 

 

---------------------

<?php

 

session_start();

 

if (empty($_SESSION['count']))

{

$_SESSION['count'] = 1;

}

else

{

$_SESSION['count']++;

}

 

?>

 

<p>

Hello visitor, you have seen this page <?php echo $_SESSION['count']; ?> times.

</p>

 

<p>

To continue, <a href="nextpage.php?<?php echo htmlspecialchars(SID); ?>">click

here</a>.

</p>

---------------------

 

 

 

Obviously, this is supposed to increment the counter by one each time the page loads. But, it doesn't work. Each time you reload the page from the address bar, or by refreshing, or by clicking the self-referencing link, the counter displays "1".

 

 

 

For proof, go to rebel.slcc.edu/~joshuaw/fish/nextpage.php

 

 

 

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

 

 

 

I see three possibilities:

 

 

 

1) I'm retarted. It's possible that I've been staring at code so long that I'm missing something obvious.

 

 

 

2) The PHP settings are wrong somewhere. I can provide those if needed.

 

 

 

3) There are local settings one my machine that are preventing the proper use of the session. My understanding of sessions tells me that this is the least likely option because I've tested it on three different computers on two different networks.

 

 

 

Thank you in advance.

[jonsjava]

Your script never checked to see if $_SESSION['count'] was set, only if it was empty:

<?php
session_start();
if (!isset($_SESSION['count']) || empty($_SESSION['count'])){
$_SESSION['count'] = 1;
}
else
{
$_SESSION['count']++;
}

?>

<p>
Hello visitor, you have seen this page <?php echo $_SESSION['count']; ?> times.
</p>

<p>
To continue, <a href="nextpage.php?<?php echo htmlspecialchars(SID); ?>">click
here</a>.
</p>

[PFMaBiSmAd]

The first posted code does in fact work (assuming sessions are configured correctly on the server at all and that your file has not been saved in a format where something is being output to the browser that would prevent the session from working.)

 

Are you learning php, developing php code, and debugging php code on a system with error_reporting set to E_ALL and display_errors set to ON in your master php.ini to get php to display all the errors it detects? If there is a problem with how sessions are configured on the server or a problem with something about your file format that prevents sessions from working, there would be php errors that would help pinpoint the problem.

[mikesta707]

Just tested your code and it works perfectly on my server

[Walker]

Okay,

so I added these lines to the code:

 

-----------------------------------

error_reporting(E_ALL);

ini_set('display_errors','On');

-----------------------------------

 

and got these error messages:

 

-----------------------------------

Warning: Unknown: open(/tmp//sess_f77cpui9u8lidn506k97qu8540, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct () in Unknown on line 0

-----------------------------------

 

Then I added this line to my code:

 

-----------------------------------

session_save_path('5;/tmp');

-----------------------------------

 

and the error messages changed to:

 

-----------------------------------

Warning: Unknown: open(/tmp/f/7/7/c/p/sess_f77cpui9u8lidn506k97qu8540, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (5;/tmp) in Unknown on line 0

-----------------------------------

 

Again, I searched several boards for clues regarding these errors, but to no avail. (and, yes, I googled them as well)

 

Do these errors shed any light on the problem?

 

Thanks again.

[PFMaBiSmAd]

session.save_path must point to a folder that actually exists.