Trouble with sessions

[Pi_Mastuh]

When a user logs in on my site it goes

session_start();

   session_register('preuserName');
   session_register('preuserID');

  $session=session_id();

 

But when the user closes the browser they have to relogin. How would I make them never expire, until the user logs out that is, and when they go to the main page (index.php) it re-directs to another page if it finds the session?

[ldsmike88]

For them to stay logged in you would have to use cookies to remember their session information. As for the redirecting you would do something like this:

 

if($session){
  header("location: redirectURL.php");
}

[Pi_Mastuh]

How do I use the cookies? I can never get them to work with the sessions.

[ldsmike88]

I believe there are some good tutorials here on phpfreaks.com. If you don't like those I always run a search in google for what I'm looking for. Maybe try searching for "php cookies tutorial."

[Pi_Mastuh]

So I set the cookie on the page that creates the session, making the cookie value the session?

 

   $cookieName="preuserName";
  $cookieVal="$_SESSION['preuserName']";
  $cookieExp=time()+(60*60*24*31);
  //All the values set, now to call the function;
  setcookie($cookieName,$cookieVal,$cookieExp);
  
  $cookieName2="preuserID";
  $cookieVal2="$_SESSION['preuserID']";
  $cookieExp2=time()+(60*60*24*31);
  //All the values set, now to call the function;
  setcookie($cookieName2,$cookieVal2,$cookieExp2);

 

How does it tell it to get the session from the cookie once the user closes the browser and goes back another time? I can't find anything on that.

[ldsmike88]

It sounds to me like you just use it like a variable. For example you could say:

$cookieVal= $_COOKIE['cookiename'];

 

That is the extent of my cookie knowledge. Here is a good article if you want it. I think the info you are looking for is near the middle/bottom of page two.

 

http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/PHP/User-identification-using-cookies-in-PHP-MySQL/