php: session variable not available in header file

Question

I'm creating a website with a login. Here is my login.php:

<?php
include 'connect.php';
include 'header.php';

echo '<h3>Sign up</h3>';
$username="";
$finished = false;

if($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST')
{
    /* so, the form has been posted, we'll process the data in three steps:
        1.  Check the data
        2.  Let the user refill the wrong fields (if necessary)
        3.  Save the data 
    */
    $errors = array(); /* declare the array for later use */

    if(!isset($_POST['user_name']))
    {
        $errors[] = 'The username field must not be empty.';
    }


    if(!isset($_POST['user_pass']))
    {
        $errors[] = 'The password field cannot be empty.';
    }


    if(!empty($errors)) /*check for an empty array, if there are errors, they're in this array (note the ! operator)*/
    {
        echo '<p class="error">login failed';
        echo '<ul>';
        foreach($errors as $key => $value) /* walk through the array so all the errors get displayed */
        {
            echo '<li>' . $value . '</li>'; /* this generates a nice error list */
        }
        echo '</ul></p>';
    }
    else
    {
        //the form has been posted without errors, so save it
        //notice the use of mysql_real_escape_string, keep everything safe!
        //also notice the sha1 function which hashes the password
         $sql = "SELECT 
                        user_id,
                        user_name,
                        user_level
                    FROM
                        users
                    WHERE
                        user_name = '" . mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['user_name']) . "'
                    AND
                        user_pass = '" . sha1($_POST['user_pass']) . "'";



        $result = mysql_query($sql);
        if(!$result)
        {
            //something went wrong, display the error
            echo '<p class="error">Something went wrong while registering. Please try again later.</p>';
            //echo mysql_error(); //debugging purposes, uncomment when needed
        }
        else
        {
            if(mysql_num_rows($result) == 0)
            {
                echo '<p class="error">You have supplied a wrong user/password combination. Please try again.</p>';
            }
            else
            {
                $_SESSION['signed_in'] = true;
                while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
                {
                    $_SESSION['user_id']    = $row['user_id'];
                    $_SESSION['user_name']  = $row['user_name'];
                    $_SESSION['user_level'] = $row['user_level'];
                }

                echo 'Successfully logged in as ' . $_SESSION['user_name'];
                $finished=true;
            }
        }
    }
}
if(!$finished) {
echo '<form method="post" action="">
        <table>
            <tr>
                <td>Username:</td><td> <input type="text" name="user_name" value="' . $username . '"/></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Password:</td><td> <input type="password" name="user_pass"/></td>
            </tr>
        </table>
        <input type="submit" value="login" />

     </form>';
}

include 'footer.php';
?>

my header.php:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
        <meta name="description" content="A short description." />
        <meta name="keywords" content="put, keywords, here" />
        <title>PHP-MySQL forum</title>
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css">
    </head>
    <body>
        <h1>My forum</h1>
        <div id="wrapper">
            <div id="menu">
                <a class="item" href="index.php">Home</a> -
                <a class="item" href="/forum/create_topic.php">Create a topic</a> -
                <a class="item" href="/forum/create_cat.php">Create a category</a>



                    <div id="userbar">
                                    <?php
                        if($_SESSION['signed_in'])
                        {
                            echo 'Hello' . $_SESSION['user_name'] . '. Not you? <a href="signout.php">Sign out</a>';
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            echo '<a href="login.php">Log in</a> or <a href="sign up">create an account</a>.';
                        }
                                    ?>
                    </div>

            </div>
            <div id="content">

and the footer:

            </div><!-- content -->
        </div><!-- wrapper -->
    </body>
</html>

Now when i login succesfully, and i try to access the $_SESSION['signed_in'] in the header it is not set(i tried an output with echo and it didnt show anything). 'user_name' etc. is also not set, but in the login.php it has the correct content. What am i doing wrong?

ok there is nothing about that in my tutorial i'm using. Can u tell me where i have to call it? — Ginso, Oct 27 '17 at 08:24
Possible duplicate of [Session variables not working php](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19692157/session-variables-not-working-php) — mega6382, Oct 27 '17 at 08:25

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

0

For sessions to work in PHP, you must start them first using session_start(). You can do that in your script by either adding that at top of login.php or connect.php, Like below:

<?php
session_start();
include 'connect.php';

Better add it in connect.php to make it available on all other pages as well.

WARNING

mysql_* is DEPRECATED as of php-5.5 and was REMOVED in php-7.0. So instead use mysqli_* or PDO.
Why shouldn't I use mysql_* functions in PHP?

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

1
1

answered Oct 27 '17 at 08:20

mega6382

9,211
17
48
69

answering and flagging as duplicate is not very cool. You do one or the other. If you believe the question is already answered, why the need to answer it again? Peace. – yivi Oct 27 '17 at 08:31
While the solution on duplicate question does provide the solution to this question, it also includes some other stuff, that is not relevant to this. So, my answer provides the solution to OP's problem. – mega6382 Oct 27 '17 at 08:35
If you thought the question was a dupe, [you shouldn't answer it](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/10844/348149). Your answer is not wrong, but it didn't bring anything new to the site. The OP can already find their answer there. Unless you are doing it only for teh pointz. :P Still, whatever floats your boat. – yivi Oct 27 '17 at 08:42

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 27 '17 at 08:20

-1

on the first line, the first thing to do is to create the session.

  <?php
   session_start();
  ?>

remember to write this line as the first thing on every file which uses the session variables

answered Oct 27 '17 at 08:20

Orange Orange

1,763
1
10
18

php: session variable not available in header file

2 Answers2

WARNING