Question

Is it not mandatory to use session_start() before using any session variables in PHP?
I tried the following piece of code without declaring session_start() at the beginning, it worked fine.

So, now I’m confused. Please help !!!!

Also, I did not use any $_POST or $_GET to pass $uname to home.php, but still how does it work? If we use include ‘home.php’ then does it treat login.php and home.php as same page?

// code login.php//
<?
require_once 'db_connect.php';

if (isset($_SESSION ['user_id']) && !empty($_SESSION ['user_id']))
{

    $u_name = $_SESSION['user_name'];
    include 'home.php';
}
else
{
//some stmt
}
?>

/*******home.php file ****/

<?php
require_once 'dbconnect.php';
$_SESSION['username'] = $u_name;
//echo $_SESSION['username'];
//blah blah
?>

Answer 1

You definitely need it, if session.autostart is not set in php.ini. But you would probably know that then.

Do you not call it in db_connect.php? Also, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t get any errors, the session would just be empty.