Question

I already have an existing login system using php and mysql using sessions. I think i do not need to post the code here.

i want to add a user level feature to it, wherein it limits the pages that can be viewed by a registered user depending on his access level. Example user level 1 can can access pages 1-5 only, and user level 2 can access pages 1-10, and so on.

i addedd a userlevel column on my members table. and i do not know what is the next step.

what particular function / code can be used to set the user level restrictions on the pages?

i tried searching out for examples in the web but can’t find any good one.

please help

Answer 1

You haven’t given me much information as to what’s happening (Maybe that’s why your username is PHPNewbie).

What I did have done with a previous user system of mine is I had a separate table called groups. In the groups table it had boolean values of different privileges in columns (such as canComment). Whenever I needed to verify if a user could perform an action, I just checked for a true value in action’s column.

You could implement this by having a broader user system, where an integer userLevel could indicate the group of the user (0 – root, 1 – basic etc.). What it appears you want is a page restriction system. I can suggest you use a switch statement that retrieves the userLevel as so –

switch(userLevel) { //Where userLevel is an int retrieved from the session/database
case 0:
    echo $page;
break;

case 1:
    echo "You cannot access this resource...";
break;