Problem with Sessions?

PHP
1

I attempted to create a members only area, When I try to register,
http://fixmysite.us/masterasp/register.php
The link to sign up works, however when I try to login
http://fixmysite.us/masterasp/login.php
The same link to sign up doest work (I guess the variable $IsUserLoggedIn is faslse)
Here is the code setting that variable is the user is sucessfully logged (in my header.php file)


<?php
// Run a quick check to see if we are an authenticated user or not  
// First, we set a 'is the user logged in' flag to false by default.  
$isUserLoggedIn = false;  
$session = session_id();
$query = "SELECT * FROM users1 WHERE session_id = '".$session."' LIMIT 1";  
$userResult = mysql_query($query) or die ("Error in query: $query. ".mysql_error()); 
if(mysql_num_rows($userResult) == 1){  
    $_SESSION['user'] = mysql_fetch_assoc($userResult);  
    $isUserLoggedIn = true;
    echo "<span>Welcome ".$_SESSION["user"]["username"]."</span>"; 
    echo "<ul>";
    echo "<li><a href=\\"/masterasp/logout.php\\">Logout</a></li>";
    echo "</ul>";
} else {  
    echo "<ul>";
    echo "<li><a href=\\"/masterasp/login.php\\">Login</a></li>";
    echo "<li><a href=\\"/masterasp/register.php\\">Register</a></li>";
    echo "</ul>";
}
?>

Here is my code for become_a_provider.php.


<?php if($isUserLoggedIn) { ?>
<h2>Become a provider</h2>
.....
<?php } else { ?>
<p>In order to become a provider, you must be logged in.  Reqistration is free and takes only a second,  <a href="../register.php">register</a> or <a href="../login.php">login</a>.</p>
<p align="center"><img src="../images/sad.jpg" alt="I'm sad" class="result"></p>
<?php } ?>

I dont understand why that variable is true upon registration, but not on the login screen
shouldn’t it be?

2

This should hav ebeen posted in PHP, but an admin will take care of that.

So essentially you are setting $isUserLoggedIn = true; on page1 and trying to access $isUserLoggedIn; and page 2…

Let me answer this problem by posing another question to you. What is the difference between setting $isUserLoggedIn = true; and $_SESSION[‘user’] = mysql_fetch_assoc($userResult); ?

3

isnt the variable ($IsUserLoggedIn) only set to true if that session_id is located (mysql_num_rows($userResult) == 1), and I really dont know what _SESSION[‘user’] = mysql_fetch_assoc($userResult); does. I think its not needed as I don’t have an associative array , but what does that do?

4

The problem is that isUserLoggedIn is not a session, therefore it will not survive an HTTP request, $_SESSION[‘user’] will though. You can either 1) use $_SESSION[‘user’] to determine if the user is logged in or not, or 2) change $IsUserLoggedIn to $_SESSION[‘IsUserLoggedIn’]

5

Any scripts which use sessions need to have session_start() in them before any point at which anything is output to the browser. Typically it’s placed as the very next line after the opening <?php of the script.

6

Ya, I have session_start(); at the top of my header.php file.
Session variables are used here because they can be used by any page which has session_start() in it?
If thats the case t hen it would be easy to simply check for the existence of $_SESSION[‘logged’] (I’ll rename the session variable inj the header.php file and check for it on both my registration and login pages?

Thanks…

7

Maybe some error occurs before session set?