Few basic Qs about $_SESSION var

PHP
1

sessionnoob. Will someone explain why the session var is assigned in reverse order,
$_SESSION[‘name’] = $myVar;
and not,
$myVar = $_SESSION[‘name’];

And number two, my host has magic quotes turned on, so I have a little scriptie scrubbing all my php vars (post, get, cookie, etc.). When I added the session var, for example,
$_SESSION = array_map(‘trim’, $_SESSION);
to the list, PHP generated an error saying session is not an array, or some such malarky. Now that I look at it, I don’t need to do mysql-real-escape-string or strip-slashes to the session var since its not user input, but why would php say its not an array? or is this just an erroneous error report?
C

2

Really?
I don’t have to define the array index for post, get, cookie, request. This code runs on everything in that var. Why is session so special?

3

And number two, my host has magic quotes turned on, so I have a little scriptie scrubbing all my php vars

Magic quotes related directives are ini-per-directory, have you tried overriding your hosts magic quotes settings ?

Create a file in your directory named “php.ini” and place these two lines in it.

magic_quotes_gpc = Off
magic_quotes_runtime = Off

If you’re on Godaddy hosting you will need to name that file “php5.ini” if you’re using PHP 5.

4

you have to define the session array index

magic_quotes_gpc This feature has been DEPRECATED as of PHP 5.3.0. Relying on this feature is highly discouraged.

5

The session is not brought into life unless you call session_start. What that does is look for a cookie from the browser (and if not found, sends one), and loads a text file tied to the session id. TBH I forget exactly what happens as that logic is tucked away in my fw, but you can easily find out by var_dump ing $_SESSION before and after calling session_start.

6

$_SESSION[‘name’] = $myVar;

loads the value from $myVar into the session so it can be passed to subsequent pages

$myVar = $_SESSION[‘name’];

copies the value back from the session into a variable (something rather pointless since you can just as easily reference it within the session)