PHP - Storing An Object As A Session

I don't know why but I'm failing hard at GoogleFu today. I can't find a tutorial on how to store a session id in a cookie and then call it on the server. session_id says it replaces the cookie it makes if you set the id via session_id, even if it's the same id...but I'm not sure if that really matters.

Can anyone help point me in the right direction to a good tutorial/give me some insight on this subject? I want to store the session id in a cookie to keep a user logged in for 2 weeks or so (unless they log out of course).

I did find some tutorials on how to re-route the session handlers for open/close/read/write session functions which allow me to store the session in a database. Is this what I want?

Sorry for the newbie question,

Thanks,
Justin

I need some help with this. A user fills out a form, one of the fields is a zip code field. I need to retrieve that value from MySQL store as a session var and set that value as a variable to use with a weather display API. The ID is being stored from the form page.

Here is what I have so far, after the values are submitted into the DB.


<?php
session_start();
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
if (!$con)
  {
  die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
  }

mysql_select_db("my_db", $con);

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Profile WHERE id='{$_SESSION['id']}");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    $_SESSION['id'] = $row['id'];
$_SESSION['zip'] = $row['zip'];

}


mysql_close($con);
?>



and then for the weather API, I need to set the stored variable to something

$zip = 'stored zip code value'; 

Here is my code...

Code: [Select]
<?php
mysql_connect("localhost", "user", "pass")or die("cannot connect"); 
mysql_select_db("database")or die("cannot select DB");
 
$myemail = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['myemail']);  
$mypassword = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['mypassword']); 
$mypassword = md5($mypassword);

$myemail = stripslashes($myemail);
$mypassword = stripslashes($mypassword);

$sql="SELECT * FROM users WHERE email='$myemail' and password='$mypassword'";
$result=mysql_query($sql);

$count=mysql_num_rows($result);

if($count==1){
session_start();  
$_SESSION["myemail"]= "$myemail"; 
header("location:home.php");
}
else {
header("location:fail.php");
}
?>
What can I do to this code so that it will also store first name from the database inside a session?

I am having some problems with part of the code. What is going on is a user registers info with a form and is sent an email with a confirmation link. The info that was in a temp DB table is moved to a member table. All of this works fine, but I am trying to be able to store an ID and username associated with their passkey info and echo that variable out. This part I am having trouble with. Code is here.


<?
session_start();
include('config.php');

// Passkey t from link
$passkey=$_GET['passkey'];

$tbl_name1="Profile_temp";

// Retrieve data from table where row matches passkey
$sql1="SELECT * FROM $tbl_name1 WHERE confirm_code ='$passkey'";
$result1=mysql_query($sql1);


// If successfully queried
if($result1){

// Count how many row has this passkey
$count=mysql_num_rows($result1);

// if passkey is found retrieve info from temporary DB
if($count==1){

$rows=mysql_fetch_array($result1);
$FirstName=$rows['FirstName'];
$LastName=$rows['LastName'];
$UserName=$rows['UserName'];
$Password= md5($rows['Password']);
$Password2=md5($rows['Password2']);
$email=$rows['email'];
$Zip=$rows['Zip'];
$Birthday=$rows['Birthday'];
$Security=$rows['Security'];
$Security2=$rows['Security2'];

$tbl_name2="Profile";

// Insert data that retrieves from "temp_members_db" into table "registered_members"
$sql2="INSERT INTO $tbl_name2(`FirstName`,`LastName`,`Username`,`Password`,`Password2`,`email`,`Zip`,`Birthday`,`Security`,`Security2`) VALUES ('$FirstName','$LastName','$UserName','$Password','$Password2','$email','$Zip','$Birthday','$Security','$Security2')"; 
//echo $sql2;
$result2=mysql_query($sql2);
}

// if passkey is not found, display message "Wrong Confirmation code"
else {
echo "<h2>Sorry, Your passkey was not found.</h2>";
}
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result2)) {
    $_SESSION['id'] = $row['id'];
$_SESSION['UserName']=$user_name; 
}

// if successfully moved data from table"temp_members_db" to table "registered_members" displays message "Your account has been activated" and don't forget to delete confirmation code from table "temp_members_db"
if($result2){

echo "<h2>Your account has been activated,  </h2>";
echo "$user_name"; 
echo"<p>You may now upload a profile picture</p>";

// Delete information of this user from table "temp_members_db" that has this passkey
$sql3="DELETE FROM $tbl_name1 WHERE confirm_code = '$passkey'";
$result3=mysql_query($sql3);

}

}
?>


getting an error for this part

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result2)) {
    $_SESSION['id'] = $row['id'];
$_SESSION['UserName']=$user_name; 
}


the error is "Warning: mysql_fetch_assoc(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in confirmation.php on line 62"

I just ran into grief while trying to store a DateTime object in the SESSION variable. When I tried to use the stored value I got the error message "The DateTime object has not been correctly initialized by its constructor."

I initially assumed that objects can't be stored in SESSION because there's no way to serialize and deserialize them for storage between scripts. But I've found posts by other people who have done this with without problems.

If it works for others, why isn't it working for me? Is there something special about the DateTime class that prevents the PHP engine from serializing it?

Here's a little script that demonstrates the problem (in PHP 5.2.5 under Windows XP):

Code: [Select]
<?php
session_start();

if ( key_exists( 'd', $_SESSION ) ) {
   $d = $_SESSION['d'];
   echo "<br/>The value of 'd' is " . $d->format('m/d/Y');
}
else {
   echo "'d' has no value yet.";
}

$d = new DateTime('2011-08-01');
$_SESSION['d'] = $d;

$e = $_SESSION['d'];
echo "<br/>The value of 'd' has been set to  " . $e->format('m/d/Y');

?>
The first time the script is run it does not display "The value of 'd' is..." because $_SESSION['d'] does not exist. It sets the value, then retrieves it intact and displays it.

The second time the script is run it tries to retireve the value but apparently gets an invalid one and displays the error. Then it sets, retrieves, and displays the value again.