PHP Sessions: Part 1

It’s time to learn about sessions in PHP.

Here is some basic code to start a session, and display the resulting $_SESSION superglobal:

<?php

session_start();

echo '<pre>';
var_dump($_SESSION);
echo '</pre>';

The resulting output:

array(0) {
}

To prove that it’s working, simply comment out the session_start() call:

<?php

//session_start();

echo '<pre>';
var_dump($_SESSION);
echo '</pre>';

Which results in:

NULL

So now I know how to turn sessions on. Next, I need to understand a little more about how sessions work.