#27555 [Com]: Unable to modify $_SESSION from __destruct()

ID: 27555 Comment by: dcaironi at yahoo dot com Reported By: jaanus at heeringson dot com Status: Open Bug Type: Documentation problem Operating System: Linux 2.4.24 PHP Version: 5CVS-2004-03-10 (dev) New Comment: I agree with fschaper. The ability to modify the $_SESSION variable in the destructor could be very useful, for example to have your class automatically serialized in session; this, with a factory pattern (getInstance method, that unserialized the class if exists in session), allow to have a "session object", sort of. for example Class Test{ function __destruct(){ $_SESSION['test'] = serialize($this); } static function getInstance(){ $instance = unserialize($_SESSION['test']); if(!isset($instance) || !is_a$instance,"test")){ $instance = new Test(); } return $instance; } } Actually, this was possible with php 4.x using register_shutdown_function, that (in fact) allows to simulate the destructor behaviour... Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2004-06-01 17:22:22] fschaper at intux dot org Why not to call the destructors before the modules are shut down? I wrote a short patch for this and it works out fine (That does not mean however that it does not break something ,) ). http://www.intux.org/download/patches/patch_php_cvs_01_06_04.rar ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2004-03-11 04:34:16] derick@php.net It's still not documented, leave it as an open doc bug. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2004-03-11 04:28:32] helly@php.net Thank you for taking the time to write to us, but this is not a bug. Please double-check the documentation available at http://www.php.net/manual/ and the instructions on how to report a bug at http://bugs.php.net/how-to-report.php The destructor is executed too late in the shutdown sequence. If you want a destructor to modify some $_SESSION then you need to manually refcount and free all references using unset() before the script terminates. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2004-03-11 03:16:29] derick@php.net Destructors are run (when not unset-ing yourself) after the session module finalizes the session so everything done in constructors has no effect. I agree it's not optimal behavior, but I don't think we need to classify it as a bug. It is not documented though so I'm making this a documentation problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2004-03-11 02:35:15] jaanus at heeringson dot com Yes, but that is not the issue here, is it? What this bug is about is the unability to add session variables from __destruct(). Obviously you have to reload the page to se the effect on the real session. The [destructor] => Yes will NEVER appear in $_SESSION. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The remainder of the comments for this report are too long. To view the rest of the comments, please view the bug report online at http://bugs.php.net/27555 -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=27555&edit=1