How to use jQuery AJAX $.post to store PHP $_SESSION variables?

Question

Help!

I'm having trouble wrestling AJAX to work for me. I have a paginated gallery with checkboxes beneath each image and I need to store the checkbox values in session variables if a user moves between the pages, so when they submit the form at any time it will include all checked values across all pages.

I'm using this jQuery code:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $(".gal-nav").click(function() {
        $.post("form-data-holder.php", $("#gallery-form").serialize());
    });
});

and the form-data-holder.php file says this:

<?php

    $_SESSION['saved'] = "true";

    foreach ($_POST as $key=>$value ) {
        if ( $key !== "submit" ) {
            $value = htmlentities(stripslashes(strip_tags($value)));
            $_SESSION[$key] = $value;
        }
    }

?>

I have two issues --

1) How do I get the checkbox values out of the serialize() function? I think there's more I have to do with something like value[] to get that array out, and then I guess store each one as a separate session variable -- unless I can store an array as a $_SESSION variable?

2) Before I even mess with any of that, I added that line $_SESSION['saved'] = "true"; to the php script and then I echo the $_SESSION keys and values on my gallery page to see if the AJAX request is even working. It's not. That $_SESSION['saved'] isn't added to the list of echoed $_SESSION variables when I return to the page.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

jeroen · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-15 15:09:58Z

6

You need to call session_start() in your form-data-holder.php file.

Every time you make the ajax call, you are requesting a new / fresh page from the server that isn't aware of any of the variables set in the original page.

edited Oct 15, 2009 at 15:09

answered Oct 15, 2009 at 14:53

jeroen

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9 Comments

rhodesjason Over a year ago

Sorry, the session has already been started by the fact that the user must be logged in to see the gallery at all.

jeroen Over a year ago

Yes, but when you make an ajax call, it's loading a new php page, starting fresh, so you will need to call it there as well.

rhodesjason Over a year ago

Hmm ok I added <?php session_start(); ?> to the top of the form-data-holder.php file -- no change. Do I have to associate that session with the other session somehow?

jeroen Over a year ago

Not normally, if you're not starting the session in a special way with a session name or anything. Are you sure form-data-holder.php is opened / found?

John Dvorak Over a year ago

You can disable error displaying and enable error logging to a file. It's practically a requirement for a live code.

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