Question

When I include the Joomla framework, the Joomla session seems to be overwriting the session that I am using in another script.
How can I get information from the first session AND from Joomla?

DETAILS

I started a session in a php script external to Joomla.

That file is file1.php

<?php 
    session_start();
    $qid[0]=1;
    $qid[0]=2;
    $qid[0]=3;
    $_SESSION['qid']=$qid;
?>

I then have a php script called main.php It includes 2 files, getsessdata.php and getjoomla.php

main.php

<?php 
    include("getsessdata.php"); 
    include("getjoomla.php"); 
?>

I can get the session data from main.php if getjoomla.php is not included.

var_dump($_SESSION); Shows that the session data for qid is missing when getjoomla.php is included.

getsessdata.php

<?php 
    session_start();
    $qid=$_SESSION['qid']; 
?>

getjoomla.php

<?php
   define( '_JEXEC', 1 );
   define('JPATH_BASE', dirname(__FILE__));   
   define( 'DS', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR );   
   require_once ( JPATH_BASE .DS.'includes'.DS.'defines.php' );
   require_once ( JPATH_BASE .DS.'includes'.DS.'framework.php' );
   require_once (JPATH_BASE.DS.'libraries'.DS.'joomla'.DS.'environment'.DS.'request.php');

   $mainframe =& JFactory::getApplication('site');
   $mainframe->initialise();
?>   

QUESTION:

How can I access the session information from file1.php and still access data from getjoomla.php ? Why am I losing the information from the first session?

Not sure if this helps, but once I have the session data from file1 in main.php the session is no longer needed.

Answer 1

Going on the use of $mainframe, I’m guessing Joomla! 1.5.x.

When you call JFactory::getApplication(‘site’) in it’s construction, a new session is created using session_start() with a passed in Id, this blows away any previous session.

More specifically when JSession is called it’s __construct calls _start

function _start()
{
    //  start session if not startet
    if( $this->_state == 'restart' ) {
        session_id( $this->_createId() );
    }

    session_cache_limiter('none');
    session_start();

    // Send modified header for IE 6.0 Security Policy
    header('P3P: CP="NOI ADM DEV PSAi COM NAV OUR OTRo STP IND DEM"');

    return true;
}

To get around this you could try* this:

1. put your data in a namespace in $_SESSION

2. pass an option array after the ‘site’ value, eg. your session namespace.

->

$options['name'] = 'qidSpace';

$mainframe =& JFactory::getApplication('site', $options);

HTH.

*I’m not 100% sure of the mechanics but it should be close.