{"id":123222,"date":"2021-10-14T04:22:37","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T04:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phppot.com\/?p=15694"},"modified":"2021-10-14T04:22:37","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T04:22:37","slug":"php-session-time-set-unset-and-check-existence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2021\/10\/14\/php-session-time-set-unset-and-check-existence\/","title":{"rendered":"PHP session time set unset and check existence"},"content":{"rendered":"
by Vincy<\/a>. Last modified on November 21st, 2021.<\/div>\n

PHP session is one of the methods for keeping data persistency on the server side.<\/p>\n

PHP sessions have a deadline time limit for keeping data persistent. PHP configuration file includes directives to have this specification.<\/p>\n

We can also create custom code to change the default PHP session deadline.<\/p>\n

This article contains sections that describe the PHP sessions, their time-limit configurations. It provides examples for setting session limits and tracking existence.<\/p>\n

The below example gives a quick solution to set PHP session time<\/span>. It contains only two steps to set and track the session expiration status.<\/p>\n

\n

Quick example<\/h2>\n

1. Create a file set-session.php and set value and lifetime.<\/p>\n

\n<?php\nsession_start();\n\/\/Set PHP session with value, time\n$currentTime = time();\n$_SESSION['color'] = array( \"value\" => \"blue\", \"time\" => $currentTime, \"life_time\" => 5\n);\n?>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
2. Create a file check-session.php to compute if the session existence.<\/p>\n
\n<?php\nsession_start();\nif (isset($_SESSION['color'])) { $sessionSetTime = $_SESSION['color']['time']; $sessionLifeTime = $_SESSION['color']['life_time']; if ((time() - $sessionSetTime) > $sessionLifeTime) { unset($_SESSION['color']); print 'Session expired'; }\n}\n?>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
About PHP session<\/h2>\n
We have already seen PHP sessions and cookies<\/a> in a previous article. PHP sessions are for managing application data, state persistent during the working flow.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of uses of sessions in an application. The below list shows some of the states or data managed by the use of sessions.<\/p>\n
We have seen how to create a login script using the PHP session<\/a>. In that, the session lifetime tracking can be used to log out after few minutes of inactivity.<\/p>\n
\"php<\/p>\n
PHP session lifetime settings<\/h2>\n
This section describes the configuration directives used to set PHP session time. The below table shows two PHP.ini settings<\/a> related to the session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
PHP directive<\/th>\nDescription<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
session.gc_maxlifetime<\/td>\nIt sets the max lifetime after which the session will be elapsed and collected as garbage.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
session.cookie_lifetime<\/td>\nIt sets the time limit for the session cookie in seconds. Default is 0 which means to be persistent until the client quits. Note: PHP session_set_cookie_params() sets all the session cookie parameters in runtime.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
The below PHP info highlights the session configuration settings. Refer to more runtime session configuration directives<\/a> in the linked official site.<\/p>\n
\"php<\/p>\n
Example: Working with PHP session time \u2013 Set expiration and limit lifetime<\/h2>\n
This PHP session time handling example is the enhanced version of the above quick example.<\/p>\n
It creates three session variables to set color, shape and size. It sets the lifetime for each PHP session variable while setting values.<\/p>\n
The PHP code checks if the session exists. Once the time is reached, it unset<\/a> that particular session variable and destroys it.<\/p>\n
\"php<\/p>\n
Landing page to set session<\/h3>\n
The landing page of this example shows a control to set the PHP session time. Once started, the session expiration status is checked at a periodic interval. This page includes the AJAX script to raise the call to PHP to check the session.<\/p>\n
If the PHP session time is over, then this page will display a notice to the user. After all the sessions are expired, then the page will clear the notification and ask to reset the session.<\/p>\n
index.php<\/p>\n
\n<html>\n<head>\n<link href=\".\/assets\/css\/style.css\" rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text\/css\" \/>\n<\/head>\n<body> <div class=\"session\" data-status='<?php if(!empty($_GET[\"status\"])) { echo $_GET[\"status\"]; } ?>'> <div id=\"box\"> <h1 align=\"center\">Set PHP session time<\/h1> <div class=\"text\"> <a href=\"set-session.php\" class=\"btn\">Reset Session<\/a> <\/div> <div id=\"status\"><\/div> <\/div> <div id=\"message\"><\/div> <\/div> <script src=\"https:\/\/code.jquery.com\/jquery-3.6.0.min.js\"><\/script> <script src=\".\/assets\/js\/session.js\"><\/script>\n<\/body>\n<\/html> <\/code><\/pre>\n
Check PHP session time via JavaScript AJAX<\/h3>\n
This script sets an interval to call the AJAX script<\/a> to check the PHP session time. After getting the response, this AJAX success<\/em> block shows the expired PHP sessions.<\/p>\n
It checks the PHP session time every 5 seconds via AJAX. This script uses JavaScript setInterval()<\/em> to invoke the checkSession()<\/em> method.<\/p>\n
session.js<\/p>\n
\nif($('.session').data('status') != \"\") { var interval; interval=setInterval(checkSession, 5000); $(\"#status\").text(\"Checking session expiration status...\");\n}\nfunction checkSession(){ $.ajax({ url:\"check-session.php\", method:\"POST\", success:function(response){ if(response!=\"\"){ if(response == -1){ $(\"#status\").hide(); clearInterval(interval); window.location.href='index.php'; } else{ $(\"#message\").append(response); } } } });\n};\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
Set unset PHP session time<\/h2>\n
In this section, it shows two PHP files to set and unset the PHP session time.<\/p>\n
The set-session.php<\/em> is called on clicking the UI control on the landing page. It sets the color, shape and size in the PHP session.<\/p>\n
Each session array is a multi-dimensional associative array. It has the details of PHP session set time, lifetime and value.<\/p>\n
The session set-time and lifetime are used to calculate the session expiry.<\/p>\n
set-session.php<\/p>\n
\n<?php\nif (! isset($_SESSION)) { session_start();\n}\n$currentTime = time();\n$_SESSION['color'] = array( \"value\" => \"blue\", \"time\" => $currentTime, \"lifetime\" => 3\n);\n$_SESSION['shape'] = array( \"value\" => \"circle\", \"time\" => $currentTime, \"lifetime\" => 5\n);\n$_SESSION['size'] = array( \"value\" => \"big\", \"time\" => $currentTime, \"lifetime\" => 10\n);\nheader(\"Location: index.php?status=starts\");\nexit();\n?> <\/code><\/pre>\n
This code returns the response text once the session is expired.<\/p>\n
It validates the session expiry by comparing the remaining time and the PHP session lifetime.<\/p>\n
Once all three sessions are expired, then this code returns -1. On receiving -1, the AJAX callback stops tracking by clearing the interval.<\/p>\n
check-session.php<\/p>\n
\n<?php\nif (! isset($_SESSION)) { session_start();\n} if (! isset($_SESSION['color']) && (! isset($_SESSION['shape'])) && (! isset($_SESSION['size']))) { print - 1;\n}\nif (isset($_SESSION['color'])) { $sessionTimeColor = $_SESSION['color']['time']; $sessionLifeTimeColor = $_SESSION['color']['lifetime']; if ((time() - $sessionTimeColor) > $sessionLifeTimeColor) { unset($_SESSION['color']); print '<div class=\"response-text\"><span>Color Session Expired<\/span><\/div>'; } } if (isset($_SESSION['shape'])) { $sessionTimeShape = $_SESSION['shape']['time']; $sessionLifeTimeShape = $_SESSION['shape']['lifetime']; if ((time() - $sessionTimeShape) > $sessionLifeTimeShape) { unset($_SESSION['shape']); print '<div class=\"response-text\"><span>Shape Session Expired<\/span><\/div>'; } } if (isset($_SESSION['size'])) { $sessionTimeSize = $_SESSION['size']['time']; $sessionLifeTimeSize = $_SESSION['size']['lifetime']; if ((time() - $sessionTimeSize) > $sessionLifeTimeSize) { unset($_SESSION['size']); print '<div class=\"response-text\"><span>Size Session Expired<\/span><\/div>'; }\n}\nexit();\n?> <\/code><\/pre>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Thus we have learned how to set PHP session time via programming. This article described the PHP configurations to set max session lifetime.<\/p>\n
I hope this example helped to create your own code to manage PHP sessions and time.
Download<\/a><\/p>\n
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by Vincy. Last modified on November 21st, 2021. PHP session is one of the methods for keeping data persistency on the server side. PHP sessions have a deadline time limit for keeping data persistent. PHP configuration file includes directives to have this specification. We can also create custom code to change the default PHP session […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-php-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}