Php + mysql + old sessions

wh33t · 08-24-2010, 01:56 PM

Hello LQ,

I know this isn't a php forum, but what can I say, Linux nerds do it the best and you guys always seem to have the best insight.

I come to you with a fairly simple problem which I am hoping has a simple answer. I am currently recording some information in a mysql table (it's actually a shopping cart) and it stores items in the shopping cart via a session identifier (session_id).

Now I know PHP auto removes stale sessions on it's own, but that doesn't remove them from the MYSQL table. So I was gonna make a cron script that ran once every hour that removed any MYSQL shopping cart item from the table if the original session_id that created it does not exist anymore.

From my understanding a session_id is an "actual" file located somewhere on the harddisk (is it not? correct me if I'm wrong), so I was going to do a simple check for each item in the shopping cart to check for it's original session file, if it didn't exist on the harddisk, then simply remove it from the mysql table.

What does LQ think about this?
Thanks for your insight d00ds.

Wim Sturkenboom · 08-26-2010, 12:47 AM

First let me state that I've never done shopping carts. But it sounds to me that it will work. The session info is stored in /tmp on my Slackware server.

On the other hand, I wonder why you store the temporary shopping cart in a mysql database and not in the session itself? It would save you the hassle

But you might have a very good reason (e.g. max filesize for session file).

Code:

$_SESSION['items'][$item_id]=$number_of_items;  /* item_id is a unique key from the db and the assigned value is the number of items that the visitor wants to purchase*/
$_SESSION['items'][33]=2;
$_SESSION['items'][345]=4;

If you want to keep track of the costs

Code:

$_SESSION['items'][33]['cost']=311.25;
$_SESSION['items'][33]['num']=2;
$_SESSION['items'][345]['cost']=12.50;
$_SESSION['items'][345]['num']=4;

Once the visitor submits, you store the items from the session in the database.