Hi,
I'm new here-- I've been reading the group for a couple of days. Nice
group; I like the way n00b33 questions are handled.
I've been using a Javascript routine in index.html to determine a
visitor's browser's capabilities. The Javascript then calls main.php,
passing back its findings with a GET string; main.php saves the data as
a visitor's profile in $_SESSION elements. It then serves up home.html
and any further pages requested by the visitor after customizing them
according to the visitor's profile. This is an original technique--
I've not seen or read about any similar method of browser feature
detection.
It has been working quite well in a low volume web site
(http://thornhenge.org/IvyIsEvil/). Unless the visitor has Javascript
disabled, the redirect from index.html happens before that page is
rendered and so long as index.html and home.html are lightweight, there
is no discernable delay. (If the visitor has turned off Javascript,
meta redirection kicks in, or he can use an explicit link to
home.html-- and main.php will set up his session profile with default
values).
But I am worried about whether I'll run into server performance issues
with higher traffic. I'm new to PHP-- gradually working my way through
Welling & Thomson's book with frequent delvings into Gilmore's book
(and heavy use of www.php.net/manual/). I've yet to see any discussion
on the practical limits of sessions. So my more or less specific
questions are:
1. What is the practical size limit for the session array? What
behaviors will I see if this limit is exceeded?
2. Is there a practical limit on the number of simultaneous
sessions a simple server can handle? Would exceeding this
generate a "too many users" message or something?
3. How does PHP/Apache handle abandoned sessions? I'm assuming
that after an interval of no activity, a session is deleted?
4. Do you know of any good discussions on this topic, and could
you steer me toward them (rather than using bandwidth and
time to redundantly say it all over again here)?
TIA,
Will