How to make Symfony2 read php native session directly

Question

I have a Symfony2 app and I have to read the sessions set from another, non-symfony app.

The non-symfony app just set its sessions into $_SESSION, as usual.

However, when I attempt to read this session, the data isn't there. No matter I do it by

$session = $this->get('request')->getSession();
var_dump($session->all());

or even (I know I shouldn't do this, but anyway)

var_dump($_SESSION);

and this gives me session already started error, and I have no idea why there is error despite I have never started session in the Symfony app. Tells me if this way actually work so that I can look into session_start() thing.

$session = new Session();
$session->start();
var_dump($session->all());

The PHPSESSID cookie is set in the Symfony2 app and its value is the same as the cookie set in the non-symfony app, but my Symfony2 app just refuse to read the content of the session. ($session->getName() returns PHPSESSID, to be clear)

(To be exact, both apps are under same domain but different subdomains, and I have already set framework.session.domain correctly in app/config.yml in Symfony app and called session_set_cookie_params on the non-symfony app to have the same domain setting to allow sharing session cookie between subdomains i.e. .example.com)

So how do you read sessions in a Symfony2 app/Controller that is set by a non-symfony app? Thanks.

I am using Symfony 2.1, if this matters.

godbout · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-08 04:53:23Z

8

No need to write a custom session handler, the native one from Symfony2 can directly read/write from the default PHP $_SESSION.

In config.yml of your Symfony2 app, add a save_path option as below:

framework:
    session:
        save_path: ~

Clean the cache, and now your sessions will be saved in the default PHP path instead of the Symfony2 sessions folder. You can now share data, that's what I did to login data between a new Sf2 app and an old Sf1 app.

answered Mar 8, 2013 at 4:53

godbout

1,8151 gold badge14 silver badges11 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Robbo_UK Over a year ago

this works for me. I think this should be the correct answer for the question and it sure beats writing a new session handler.

JamesHalsall Over a year ago

this is indeed a much better solution

Susana Santos Over a year ago

An excelente solution. And it is working in symfony3 as well. Thank you very much.

JamesHalsall · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-26 20:03:26Z

3

You won't be able to use the native Symfony2 session wrapper classes because they read session data from app/cache/{env}/sessions/{session_id}, and your non-Symfony2 app isn't writing its session data to that location.

You could write a custom session handler in your non-Symfony2 app that writes to that location, or better still you could write a native session handler class in Symfony2 which bypasses the default Symfony2 session read location and gets it from the default PHP session path

EDIT: Since writing this answer there is now a much more elegant solution available in gadbout's post below.

edited Jul 26, 2016 at 20:03

answered Nov 26, 2012 at 8:36

JamesHalsall

13.5k4 gold badges43 silver badges68 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to make Symfony2 read php native session directly

2 Answers 2

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related