Session confusion again :( - Thanks!

Any help with this would be appreciated. the p and v lnames are posted from a form. In the form, the user seperates last names with a "/". What I can't understand is why Test1 shows as nothing, while Test2 shows the value I wanted. Thanks a lot! $p_lnames= explode("/", $p_lnames); $_SESSION['element_countp'] = count($p_lnames); echo "TEST 1".$element_countp; $element_countp = $_SESSION['element_countp']; echo "TEST 2".$element_countp;