[CLUE-Tech] PHP Sessions and Cookies: Brain Cramp

Sat Oct 12 22:38:03 MDT 2002

On Sat, 12 Oct 2002 21:42:51 -0600
Jeffery Cann <fabian at jefferycann.com> wrote:

> Jed,
> 
> I think the cookie should be set when you do the redirect.  Are you
> doing this?
> 
>  header( "redirect URL" );

  header("location: $PATH/main.php");

> Also, check the session.cookie_lifetime set to in your php.ini?

It's 0. That's "session lifetime", IIRC.

> Finally, when I wonder about cookies, I will telnet to my web box and do
> a GET on the URL, so I can view the headers outside of the browser. 
> This will confirm whether the cookie is being sent by the server or if
> you have some browser weirdness.
> 
> $ telnet www.yourserver.com 80
> GET /jed/login.php

Well, DOH! I forget about useful stuff like:

$ HEAD http://localhost/~jbaer/php/itsams/user/login.php
200 OK
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0,
pre-check=0
Connection: close
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 04:03:47 GMT
Pragma: no-cache
Server: Apache/1.3.22 (Unix) PHP/4.1.1
Content-Type: text/html
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Client-Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 04:03:47 GMT
Client-Peer: 127.0.0.1:80
Set-Cookie: priapas-session=46b10a707c32564a66dda23e98b1c1e1; path=/;
domain=localhost
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.1.1

I also recalled to check the session files in /tmp. They're being created.

So, now I can't think of why Galeon or Mozilla are apparently discarding
the cookie. I just checked my local phpweblog testbed, and it sets/read
cookies OK.

So, trying to simplify things as much as possible:

<?php

session_start();
if (!ISSET($thecnt)) {
  $thecnt = 1;
  session_register("thecnt");
} else {
  $thecnt++;
}

setcookie('burgers','fries');

?>
<html>
<body>
<hr>
<?php
    echo "Count is $thecnt";
    $ssid = session_id();
    echo "<p>session is $ssid";
?>
<hr>
</body>
</html>

So, reloading this thing continually, I get a different session id each
time, and, obviously, $thecnt = 1. The burgers/fries cookie does get set.

Using the HEAD command, I see both Set-Cookie headers for the above
script.

????????
jed
-- 
We're frogs who are getting boiled in a pot full of single-character
morphemes, and we don't notice. - Larry Wall; Perl6, Apocalypse 5