Store & access data in a session?

[Arkanto5]

Hello

 

I have included a simple login system into my website. When a user logs in, a session is started and he stays connected throughout the whole website until logging out again. The user logs in via his e-mailaddress and a password, which are stored in a mysql database.

 

Now I want to add a page on which a user that is logged in, can see and edit his own information (password, cellphone number, e-mail, etc.). Or easier: instead of showing "Welcome!" showing "Welcome, John!".

 

I thought about storing the e-mailaddress into the session, and then trying to access it to select the correct record (to edit afterwards). But so far, I haven't booked any success. I have to say that this is the first time I'm working with sessions as well, so this is very new to me.

 

Thank you in advance for any help!

[WebStyles]

just load the appropriate user's information when they login. after a successful login, on the same page, you can grab all other relevant info from the database before they proceed (name, permissions, etc...), then you'll always have that info available.

[Arkanto5]

And how exactly do I do that? I get the idea, but I can't figure out to put it in some coding...

[Adam]

Getting/setting session variables is just like any other array, but PHP then saves the serialised contents into a file at the end of each request. Personally I would store the user data returned from your database within an array (excluding the password), within the $_SESSION array:

 

$_SESSION['user'] = $row;

 

That would create a session variable called 'user', populated with the user's data. On the edit profile page you're then able to access this data:

 

First name: <input type="text" name="first_name"<?php if (isset($_SESSION['user']['first_name'])): ?> value="<?php echo htmlentities($_SESSION['user']['first_name']); ?>"<?php endif; ?>>

 

Although you'd probably be better off storing the data within a variable to make the code more readable:

 

$user = $_SESSION['user'];

First name: <input type="text" name="first_name"<?php if (isset($user['first_name'])): ?> value="<?php echo htmlentities($user['first_name']); ?>"<?php endif; ?>>

 

Note the use of htmlentities.