How to Set Session in Codeigniter With Example

Details

CodeIgniter Session Management

If you have developed desktop applications before then, you probably know that you can define a global variable assign a value to it and use it throughout the life cycle of the application opening and closing more than one (1) and each request will have access to the global variable.

In other words, the state of the application is maintained. That is to say if when you logged in you set the company name to a global variable then even after you close the login form that state of the company name is preserved.

HTTP works a bit different from the above scenario that we have just described. It is stateless. That is that say whatever you do in one request does not persevere in the next request. T

o work around this problem. We have two (2) solutions in PHP. We can either work with cookies which are small files placed on the user's computer or work with sessions which are similar to cookies but are instead stored on the server and have a bigger capacity than cookies.

In this tutorial, you will learn-

When to use sessions?

Sessions are usually useful when you want to know the user's activities from page to page. For example, let's say you have a protected area on the website. The users don't need to login on each page. You can let the user login once and store their details in a session variable then reuse the same data on further requests. Other use cases include when working on a shopping system and the user has to add items to the shopping cart.

Alternatively, CodeIgniter also uses sessions to make data available only once on the next request. This is useful you have may be edited and updated a database record, and you want to return some feedback to the user when they are redirected to another page.

Sending Flash Messages to other pages with CI Sessions

In this section, you will learn about sending flash messages to other pages using the session library in CodeIgniter

Create a new file SessionController in 

application/controllers/SessionController.php

Add the following code 

<?php defined('BASEPATH') OR exit('No direct script access allowed');

class SessionController extends CI_Controller {

    public function __construct() {
        parent:: __construct();

        $this->load->helper('url');
        $this->load->library('session');
    }

    public function index() {
        
        $this->load->view('sessions/index');
    }
    
    public function flash_message(){
        $this->session->set_flashdata('msg', 'Welcome to CodeIgniter Flash Messages');
        redirect(base_url('flash_index'));
    }
}

HERE,

Let's now create the view that will display the value of the session data.

Create a new directory session in application/views

Create a new file index.php in application/views/sessions

Add the following code 

<html>
    <head>
        <title>Code Igniter Flash Session</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <p>The session value of msg is <b> <?=$this->session->userdata('msg');?> </b></p>
    </body>
</html>

HERE,

Let's now create the routes for our session flash method

Open application/config/routes.php

Add the following lines 

$route['flash_index'] = 'session controller';
$route['flash_message'] = 'session controller/flash_message';

Let's now start the built-in server for PHP and test our flash messages

Open the terminal

Run the following command 

cd C:\Sites\ci-app
php -S localhost:3000

HERE,

Note: the application path has to match the path where you downloaded CodeIgniter, and you can use any port number that is free on your computer. It's not necessary to use port 3000.

Load the following URL in your web browser

http://localhost:3000/flash_message

You will be redirected to the following URL, and you will get the following results

http://localhost:3000/flash_index

Click on the refresh button of your web browser or press F5

You will now get the following results

Storing User Data in CI Sessions

Let's now look at a slightly more advanced example. To make it simple, we will simulate user authentication and not do the actual implementation of verifying the user record in the database and the submitted password.

Let's start with the routes

Open routes.php located in application/config

Add the following routes 

$route['login'] = 'sessioncontroller/login';
$route['authenticate'] = 'sessioncontroller/authenticate';
$route['settings'] = 'sessioncontroller/settings';
$route['dashboard'] = 'sessioncontroller/dashboard';
$route['logout'] = 'sessioncontroller/logout';

HERE,

Let's now update the SessionController

Open application/controllers/SessionController.php

Add the following methods 

public function check_auth($page) {
        if (!$this->session->userdata('logged_in')) {
            $this->session->set_flashdata('msg', "You need to be logged in to access the $page page.");
            redirect('login');
        }
    }

    public function login() {
        $this->load->view('sessions/login');
    }

    public function authenticate() {
        $this->session->set_userdata('username', 'John Doe');
        $this->session->set_userdata('logged_in', TRUE);
        redirect(base_url('dashboard'));
    }

    public function dashboard() {
        $this->check_auth('dashboard');
        $this->load->view('sessions/dashboard');
    }

    public function settings() {
        $this->check_auth('settings');
        $this->load->view('sessions/settings');
    }

    public function logout() {
        $this->session->unset_userdata('username');
        $this->session->unset_userdata('logged_in');
        redirect(base_url('login'));
    }

HERE,

CodeIgniter Session Views

Create the following views in application/views/sessions

Add the following code to dashboard.php 

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Dashboard</title>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/bulma/0.7.2/css/bulma.min.css">
    </head>
    <body>
        <div class="container">
            <div class="column">
                <nav class="navbar" role="navigation" aria-label="main navigation">
                    <div id="navbarBasicExample" class="navbar-menu">
                        <div class="navbar-start">
                            <a href="/<?= site_url('dashboard')?>" class="navbar-item is-active">Dashboard</a>
                            <a href="/<?= site_url('settings')?>" class="navbar-item">Settings</a>
                        </div>

                        <div class="navbar-end">
                            <div class="navbar-item has-dropdown is-hoverable">
                                <a class="navbar-link"><?=$this->session->userdata('username');?></a>

                                <div class="navbar-dropdown">
                                    <a class="navbar-item">My Profile</a>
                                    <hr class="navbar-divider">
                                    <a class="navbar-item">Sign out</a>
                                </div>
                            </div>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </nav>
                <h3>Welcome Page</h3>
            </div>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

HERE,

Add the following code to login.php 

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Login</title>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/bulma/0.7.2/css/bulma.min.css">
    </head>
    <body>
        <div class="container">
            <div class="column">
                <p><?=$this->session->userdata('msg');?></p>
                <form method="post" action="<?= site_url('authenticate')?>">
                    <div class="field">
                        <label class="label">Username</label>
                        <div class="control">
                            <input class="input" type="text" placeholder="Text input">
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div class="field">
                        <label class="label">Password</label>
                        <div class="control">
                            <input class="input" type="passport" placeholder="Text input">
                        </div>
                    </div>
                    <div class="field is-grouped">
                        <div class="control">
                            <button class="button is-success">Login</button>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </form>
            </div>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

HERE,

Add the following code to settings.php 

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Settings</title>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/bulma/0.7.2/css/bulma.min.css">
    </head>
    <body>
        <div class="container">
            <div class="column">
                <nav class="navbar" role="navigation" aria-label="main navigation">
                    <div id="navbarBasicExample" class="navbar-menu">
                        <div class="navbar-start">
                            <a href="/<?= site_url('dashboard')?>" class="navbar-item">Dashboard</a>
                            <a href="/<?= site_url('settings')?>" class="navbar-item">Settings</a>
                        </div>

                        <div class="navbar-end">
                            <div class="navbar-item has-dropdown is-hoverable">
                                <a class="navbar-link">Jim Jones</a>

                                <div class="navbar-dropdown">
                                    <a href="#" class="navbar-item">My Profile</a>
                                    <hr class="navbar-divider">
                                    <a href="/<?= site_url('logout')?>" class="navbar-item">Sign out</a>
                                </div>
                            </div>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </nav>
                <h3>Settings Page</h3>
            </div>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

That's it for our views. Let's now test our application.

In this tutorial, we are using the built-in PHP web server, but you can use any web server that supports PHP.

Open the terminal

Run the following command 

cd C:\Sites\ci-app
php -S localhost:3000

HERE,

Note: the application path has to match the path where you downloaded CodeIgniter, and you can use any port number that is free on your computer. It's not necessary to use port 3000.

Open the following URL in your web browser

http://localhost:3000/dashboard

you will be redirected to the following page

Click on the Login button

You will see the following results

After we log in, we are now able to see the session data.

Summary

In this tutorial, you have learned the basics of CodeIgniter session library and learned how to use it to store temporal data as flash messages and how to use store more permanent data, i.e., user login data.

 

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