RE: [PHP] chicken and egg problem with SID

One way around this is to make the first page just a dummy that starts a session then redirects to the real first page, with the session id passed on the redirect URL. Kirk > -----Original Message----- > From: Egan [mailto:egan@sevenkings.net] > Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:56 AM > To: php-general@lists.php.net > Subject: [PHP] chicken and egg problem with SID > > > I have a multi page sequence of input forms tied to a session. It > works perfectly with cookies. But I also want to make it work without > cookies, using: > > php_value session.use_cookies 0 > php_value session.use_trans_sid 1 > > in my .htaccess file, to use the SID support provided by PHP. > > When testing this, I see that the SID works with all pages except the > first. But because the first page has no SID passed to it in the URL, > the first instance of: > > session_start(); > > creates a new session every time you refresh the first page with the > browser. And that is the problem. I only want one session to be > created, no matter how many times the user hits refresh on the first > page. > > So then I tried setting the session id myself, hard coding it to some > arbitrary value like: > > <? > session_id('7777625d282694214b0459cebe287777'); > session_start(); > ?> > > and that solves the multiple session problem; only one session is > created, no matter how many times you hit refresh on the first page. > > Yay! > > But that still leaves a chicken and egg problem to solve: > > I can generate some random value to be used for the session_id, but I > can't think of a good way to store it for use on the first page. > > Since the first page does not get the SID in the URL, I need to set > the session_id before calling session_start. But that means I don't > have any session where I can store my random value, for recalling it > later, on the next page refresh. > > Ack! I only need some simple way to store the SID value I generate, > before the page is loaded a second time. > > I thought of using a CGI to dynamically generate all the PHP and HTML > for page 1, and also have the CGI put a random session_id value right > into the page source itself, just like I did when testing. I suppose > that would work, but it seems like there should be an easier way. > > Maybe there is some obvious solution, but it is not obvious to me at > the moment. > > Has anyone else solved this problem, with a better method?