Using variables within an iframe

[gijew]

Hey all,

I'm having trouble figuring this one out so I was hoping one of you may have run into this at some point for the sake of my sanity...

Page1.html houses an IFRAME.  In the src attribute I append a few variables like siteid, color, etc...
Page2.php calls the form and stores the attributes inside of a few sessions
Form.php houses all of the forms, verification functions, etc

I can grab the iframe attributes as long as I am on host1.  If I use an absolute path on another host I am getting nothing.

I have no idea if I will be able to make this work but I'm hoping one of you might be able to (if anything) elaborate on why this is / is not possible and perhaps what to do to make it work.

I'm standing by if someone has a suggestion, I'll try anything at this point = )

[btherl]

Is the problem here that session data is not accessible on another host?  I'm unclear on your question.

[gijew]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking is going on.  Both hosts are hosted on the same server (dedicated box) so I assumed that I would be able to throw a session_start() on each page and BAM, it would work.  That's not the case.

Any suggestions on what's going on?

[btherl]

It's not that straightforward, since sessions are usually identified with cookies.  And no browser will send a cookie it got from domain A to domain B.

One option is to pass the session identifier explicitly, by adding "?session=" . session_id() to the link.

Then your script on the receiving end can check for $_REQUEST['session'], and if set, call session_id($_REQUEST['session']) before session_start().

I think that ought to work, as long as both virtual hosts are storing session data in the same place.

[gijew]

That's not a horrible amount of trouble but it sounds like the sessions could be flakey and I might lose the attributes and end up with some empty database fields that would get me beat down with a rubber hose.  I tried thinking of an alternate way to pass the attributes to the remote script and these are a few of the ideas I had.  But before I actually list them, I don't believe they would be any more stable.  I'll list that as well.  Hopefully someone can help me come up with some kind of idea here = )

- Store the session attributes on the page that calls the iframe into a temporary table using the ip as the PK.  LEFT JOIN on form completion and tie it together that way.  I don't think this would be very stable because you're counting on something that may be a shared resource in some companies plus you might get some empty fields in the database, not tie togther correctly, etc.

- Store the attributes into a cookie and read from that cookie.  Problem is that it's on a seperate domain so you might not be able to read from it.  I don't know, I'm just throwing that out there (in case).

That's it, not the clearest path obviously but I'm kind of drawing a blank here on the best approach.  Any help?

[448191]

http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,107541.0.html

I had a similar problem, try session_write_close().

[gijew]

Sorry for the delay in a response.  It's not like me to leave it but I've been overwhelmed with work here = /

I looked the function up in the manual and it didn't have that much in the way of help.  From what I understand is that session_write_close() will save the sessions before proceeding.  Example wise I figure it would be best to call it once you're done initiating your sessions.  It didn't work for me so I tried a few things to see exactly where this thing is dying.  I'm going to condense some code for you and maybe it's just a coding issue...

REMOTE FORM
[code]<?php
function FormInit() {
  switch ($_GET['FormAction']) {
    default: 
      return FORM();
    break;

    case 'Verify';
      return VERIFY();
    break;
  }
}

function FORM() {
  // MOSTLY HTML FORM HERE
}

function VERIFY() {
  // Verification conditionals, nothing that special.
}
?>[/code]

When I call the form remotely from another URL I do something like:
[code]<iframe src="http://www.sitename.com/page.php?Vars=whatever"></iframe>[/code]

Now I can call up the $_GET variables no problem inside of the FORM() function, remote page, etc.  When I submit the form and it posts to the VERIFY() function I lose the attributes.

Actually, writing this to you may have just led me to the problem.  I think that the URL is changing inside of the IFRAME to reflect the $_POST and I lose the $_GET variables.  I think I need a conditional here to check if they exists and if so append them to the FORM action attribute.  Whatcha think?

[gijew]

I just entered pure heaven.  It's funny how when you start typing something out you notice the problem.  I still am putting the session_write_close() function in there for the sake of saving those suckas.  I do however appreciate the help from y'all.