PHP Session

Sessions are basically server-side cookies which have a corresponding client side cookie that contains a reference to its server-side counterpart. When a user visits a page, the client sends the reference code to the server, and PHP will then match that reference code to a server-side cookie and load the data in the server’s cookie into the $_SESSION superglobal.

Setting Sessions

In order to use the $_SESSION superglobal we first need to start a session by calling the session_start(); function. once this is done we can set a session variable as shown below.

         
             session_start();
             $_SESSION['name'] = 'Ashley';
             echo "My Name is ". $_SESSION['name'];

Destroying a session

Session variables only last as long as the user has their browser open so a session is automatically destroyed when they close their browser unless you edit your php.ini file. We can however destroy our session as shown below.

 
       session_start();
       unset($_SESSION['name']);

Destroy all sessions

           session_start();
          session_destroy();