What is the correct code line for a login session

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This may be the most obvious question but I have seen some controversies on which is the right way

PHP

session_start();
$_SESSION['username'] = $username;

Or

PHP

session_start();
$username = $_SESSION['username'];

Posted 20-Dec-13 13:29pm

Braydon

Updated 20-Dec-13 13:35pm

v3

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2 solutions

Solution 1

You use the first one to create a session variable "username" to store $username the value of which come from a successful login operation.

Then, the second one uses this session variable to check if a user has logged in or not at the beginning of every secured pages, say

C#

// Check if username session is not set then redirect to login page
if (!isset($_SESSION['username'])) {
header('Location: login.php');
}

A full example here.

Posted 20-Dec-13 16:14pm

Peter Leow

Updated 20-Dec-13 16:18pm

v3

Comments

Braydon 21-Dec-13 23:49pm

Cool thanks for the tip but it is like you posted of the rim I am asking when I set a variable is it $_SESSION['username'] = $username;

OR

$username = $_SESSION['username'];
?

Peter Leow 22-Dec-13 4:16am

Ok, to set a session variable, it should be: $_SESSION['username'] = $username;

While to get the value of that session variable, then it should be: $username = $_SESSION['username'];

So the right way depends on the purpose.

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Er. Tushar Srivastava · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-22T02:31:00

Simple Answer is,

If you have a login page and some user logged in. Now you want to store his information like username, fullname, age etc for the session, then you will have to store this data in the $_SESSION variable and the assignment operator '=' is used to assign the value of variable at right hand side to the varaible at left hand side of the operator. So, you have to do,

PHP

$_SESSION['user'] = $username;

But if, you are now on a page that shows on the top, the username of the logged in user, you have to get the data stored in the session variable. This time you have to do,

PHP

$username = $_SESSION['user'];

Obviously, both the statements are correct to their purpose. I hope it helped. :)

With Regards
Tushar Srivastava