Question

I’m working on an AJAX login system and am not sure how to return the PHP session variable from AJAX unto the login page. My question is, how do I return the php variable unto the login page, if that is even possible. Below is the sample I created.

Login Page

<?php

session_start();

?>

<form>

    <input type="text" id="username" />

    <input type="text" id="password"/>

    <input type="button" id="submit" />

</form>

<script type="text/javascript" >

    $('#submit').click(function() {

var username = $('#username').val();

var password = $('#password').val();

    $.post('ajax_file.php', 
    {
    username: username,
    password:password,
    }, 
    function (data) {

    /* what do I do here that will return the php variable 
    $_SESSION['user_id'] and let the user be logged in when
    they go to homepage.php*/
    setTimeout('window.location.href="homepage.php"', 2000);
    });});

</script>

Here is the ajax page. I understand that the logic doesn’t make sense for the session variable to pop out of nowhere, let’s just assume that is was created earlier in the page.

$username = $_POST['username'];

$password = $_POST['password'];

if(login($username, $password)) {

    return $session_user_id = $_SESSION['user_id']; 

}

Answer 1

You can just do the AJAX post, set the session variable to the session in the page receiving the post, and it will be stored in the session (it’s the same session). In the AJAX callback forward the user to the home page.

Of course you must consider the scenario that the login credentials are incorrect.