$_SESSION variable not visible in $GLOBALS

Question

I am new to this and don't want to just go and change my or a colleague's php.ini.

I have Windows and he has Ubuntu set up.

I have 2 pages login.php and main.php with the following code at the top of each page

if(session_id() == '') {
    session_start();
}

I set a session variable to 1 or 0 depending if the user loggin in is a admin or not.

after clicking login you are taken to main.php. At the top of the page I did a print_r($GLOBALS) and I can see quite a lot of the global variables including the $_SESSION['admin'] entry.

On my colleague's pc there is only about 5 globals showing and $_SESSION is not there.

Is it a php.ini setup issue? Where do I start looking to fix this?

You have to call session_start(); in every page.

Naktibalda
– Naktibalda

2014-08-20 09:32:29 +00:00
Commented Aug 20, 2014 at 9:32 — Naktibalda
– Naktibalda, Commented Aug 20, 2014 at 9:32
php.ini shouldn't have anything to do with this.

serakfalcon
– serakfalcon

2014-08-20 09:32:53 +00:00
Commented Aug 20, 2014 at 9:32 — serakfalcon
– serakfalcon, Commented Aug 20, 2014 at 9:32
session.auto_start setting could make a difference.

Naktibalda
– Naktibalda

2014-08-20 09:33:59 +00:00
Commented Aug 20, 2014 at 9:33 — Naktibalda
– Naktibalda, Commented Aug 20, 2014 at 9:33

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

2

You have to call session_start(); in every page. – Naktibalda

Right

php.ini shouldn't have anything to do with this. – serakfalcon

Wrong

Then why it works on one machine and not on the other? session.auto_start in php.ini

session.auto_start Boolean

session.auto_start specifies whether the session module starts a session automatically on request startup. Defaults to 0 (disabled).

To not depend on that, you need to have

session_start();

On top of every page where you want to access or manipulate session data.

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Aug 20, 2014 at 9:34

Hanky Panky

46.9k9 gold badges76 silver badges95 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

morne Over a year ago

So doing if(session_id() == '') { session_start(); } is not the right approach. It should just be plain session_start();? Am I right in saying that?

Hanky Panky Over a year ago

Exactly, and it needs to be above any other code that manipulates the output. Not even after a blank HTML line etc

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

$_SESSION variable not visible in $GLOBALS

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related