Confused object in session variable.

Well, it's probably me that's confused. I have an authenticate() function which should start a session and if the user is not logged in then show the login screen otherwise return after storing and registering a user object in a session variable. This object has accessor methods to get the login name, access level, etc... This seems to work okay--within the authenticate function I can access the object in the HTTP_SESSION_VARS array. But as soon as I return to the main script it's gone. I must be doing something wrong with the scoping, but I can't see what. Any thoughts? Here's the code: <?php /* --------- */ /* index.php */ /* --------- */ require_once('ucautho/ucautho.inc'); authenticate(); print("From index testUser: " . $testUser->getLogin() . "<br>\n"); print("From index HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser']: "); print($HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser']->getLogin() . "<br>\n"); //this is line 12 ?> <?php /* ------------------- */ /* ucautho/ucautho.inc */ /* ------------------- */ function authenticate($appName="") {

    global $HTTP_SESSION_VARS, $HTTP_POST_VARS;
    global $testUser;
    session_name("UCAutho");
    session_start();

    if (isset($HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser']) && $HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser']->isValid()) {
        return;
    } else {
        if (isset($HTTP_POST_VARS['authoSubmit'])) {
            $HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser'] =&
                new UcAuthoUser($HTTP_POST_VARS['authoLogin'],$HTTP_POST_VARS['authoPword']);
            if ($HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser']->isValid()) {
                session_register('ucAuthoUser');
                $testUser = $HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser'];
                print("From authenticate testUser: " . $testUser->getLogin() . "<br>\n");
                print("From authenticate HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser']: ");
                print($HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser']->getLogin() . "<br>\n");
                return;
            }
        }
        showLogin($appName);
    }

} /* more functions and the class declaration snipped */ ?> Here's what I get when I login as 'steve' with a good password: From authenticate testUser: steve From authenticate HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser']: steve From index testUser: steve From index HTTP_SESSION_VARS['ucAuthoUser']: Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /home/httpd/html/ucdamage/index.php on line 12 Note the testUser works in both instances, the session var only works inside the function. -Steve