Quick question on session_start()

[Reply-Via-Newsgroup Thanks]

Folks,

I consider myself a reasonably strong PHP programmer, but I've not used
sessions before (I've used cookies instead) and I'd appreciate it if
someone could confirm something for me.

Namely... I'm working on someone else's code who has used sessions - In
their main login page, they do not use session_start() but instead, just
write directly to the $_SESSION super global array variable. This seems
to work - however on some later pages, he has session_start() noted at
the top of his code - I've read some of the documentation on sessions
and I believe that since I am using Apache 1.3.29 with PHP 4.3.6 that it
may not be nescessary to have the session_start().

A quote from the php.net documentation says:

"Note: As of PHP 4.3.3, calling session_start() while the session has
already been started will result in an error of level E_NOTICE. Also,
the second session start will simply be ignored."

Thus, can one start a session by simply writing to the $_SESSION super
global array and forget about every using session_start() ????

Help via the newsgroup (so everyone can learn) would be much
appreciated, thanks

randelld

[Kevin Thorpe]

Reply-Via-Newsgroup Thanks wrote:

Folks,

I consider myself a reasonably strong PHP programmer, but I've not used
sessions before (I've used cookies instead) and I'd appreciate it if
someone could confirm something for me.

Namely... I'm working on someone else's code who has used sessions - In
their main login page, they do not use session_start() but instead, just
write directly to the $_SESSION super global array variable. This seems
to work - however on some later pages, he has session_start() noted at
the top of his code - I've read some of the documentation on sessions
and I believe that since I am using Apache 1.3.29 with PHP 4.3.6 that it
may not be nescessary to have the session_start().

A quote from the php.net documentation says:

"Note: As of PHP 4.3.3, calling session_start() while the session has
already been started will result in an error of level E_NOTICE. Also,
the second session start will simply be ignored."

Thus, can one start a session by simply writing to the $_SESSION super
global array and forget about every using session_start() ????

Help via the newsgroup (so everyone can learn) would be much
appreciated, thanks

IIRC referring to $_SESSION performs an implicit session_start(). I
usually put it in there anyway.

[Pedro Graca]

Kevin Thorpe wrote:

Reply-Via-Newsgroup Thanks wrote:

Namely... I'm working on someone else's code who has used sessions - In
their main login page, they do not use session_start() but instead, just
write directly to the $_SESSION super global array variable. This seems
to work - however on some later pages, he has session_start() noted at
the top of his code - I've read some of the documentation on sessions
and I believe that since I am using Apache 1.3.29 with PHP 4.3.6 that it
may not be nescessary to have the session_start().

IIRC referring to $_SESSION performs an implicit session_start(). I
usually put it in there anyway.

It depends on session.auto_start in php.ini

You can check it if your script might be running in several different
servers with different configurations:

<?php
if (ini_get('session.auto_start') != '1') session_start();
?>
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