Codeigniter: Userdata--When/Why/How to use

Question

When is the proper time to use userdata? Why is it good/not good? And how should I use it properly?

When is it bad/not conventional to use?

Specifically, what's the best convention/method to utilize the session class: https://www.codeigniter.com/user_guide/libraries/sessions.html

What exactly do you mean by userdata? Please add any reference to that in your question. — Sarfraz, Aug 04 '10 at 17:50

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:07

Sessions should be used whenever you want to preserve state between two different HTTP requests. You generally want to:

Store session information on the server side (i.e. don't pass it all back and forth in cookies).
Protect yourself against Cross Site Forgery Requests (CSFR) by generating a unique key for each request and validating the key when the request returns.
Store only that information that will need to be accessed repeatedly. (Don't shove the 5,000+ results of the query you just ran for them into their session for example -- use caching instead.)
Read about PHP's $_SESSION since CodeIgniter's session is a wrapper around $_SESSION.
Understand how to maintain a secure session -- and know what CodeIgniter handles for you, and what you will need to do yourself.

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