Question

I have always wondered, if a PHP session times out during the middle of executing a script, will the contents of the $_SESSION array still be available until script execution ends? For example:

session_start();

if(! isset($_SESSION['name'])) {
    echo 'Name is not set';
    exit;
}

// imagine there is a bunch of code here and that the session times out while
// this code is being executed

echo 'Name is ', $_SESSION['name']; // will this line throw an error?

Is it practical to copy session variables to the local scope so I can read them later on in the script without having to keep checking for a session time out? Something like:

session_start();

if(isset($_SESSION['name'])) {
    $name = $_SESSION['name'];
} else {
    echo 'Name is not set';
    exit;
}

// bunch of code here

echo 'Name is ', $name;

Answer 1

don’t worry about such things. Nothing will happen to the session. It’s initialised by sessioni_start() and $_SESSION will be always available within your script.