Docs: Session Variables

Session variables can be used in any of your extension files. The easiest way to view is to print_r the SESSION array in your footer.php file:

<?
print_r($_SESSION);
?>

or do a foreach loop:

<?
foreach($_SESSION as $name => $value) {
       print ("$name: $value<br />";
}
?>

You can also do this for cookies:

<?
foreach($_COOKIE as $name => $value) {
       print ("$name: $value<br />";
}
?>

Here are a few of the standard session variables:

$_SESSION['user_id']
$_SESSION['first_name']
$_SESSION['logged_in'] and $_USER['logged_out']
$_SESSION['order'] or $_USER[cart] ('empty' or 'full')
$_SESSION['country_id']
$_SESSION['country']
$_SESSION['mode']
$_SESSION['lang']
$_SESSION['browser']
$_SESSION['platform']
$_SESSION['screen_resolution']
$_SESSION['page_views']

Example 1: check if user is logged in using the user_id session var

In this example we check if the visitor is logged in with the user_id session var and use the custom_text page variable to display text on the cart page:

<?
if(isset($_SESSION['user_id']) and $_PAGE['page']=='order'){
      $_PAGE['custom_text'] = "<p>Welcome back ".$_SESSION['first_name'].".</p>";
}
?>

The $_PAGE['custom_text'] variable can be inserted into the top.inc file and will be displayed immediately after the h1 tag.

Example 2: display a message using a snippet

Here is another example using session variables to create a snippet to insert into your template:

if(isset($_SESSION['first_name']) and isset($_SESSION['user_id'])){
      $snippet1 = "<p>Welcome back $_SESSION[first_name].</p>";
} else {
      $snippet1 = "<p>Welcome guest. <a href="/login/">Log in</a> or <a href="/account/new">create an account</a>.</p>";
}

 

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