CI session database, lot of data

#1 / Jan 24, 2012 6:59am

broadband

20 posts

I have some temporary data which I decided to save in flashdata (for the next request).

There will be lot of data, more than 4 kB (which is maximum browser cookie size), so I decided to use
database.

$config['sess_cookie_name']     = 'session';
$config['sess_expiration']        = 7200;
$config['sess_expire_on_close']   = true;
$config['sess_encrypt_cookie']    = FALSE;
$config['sess_use_database']    = true;
$config['sess_table_name']      = 'ci_session';
$config['sess_match_ip']        = FALSE;
$config['sess_match_useragent']  = false;
$config['sess_time_to_update']   = 300;

This way the cookie on the client side, does not contain value, only session_id, expire, .... not user_data.

For testing purposes I tried to save a lot of session user_data in database. Second method test2() does not show anything. Has anybody experienced the same?

public function test()
  {
    $string = "test";
    for($i = 0; $i < 10;$i++) $string .= $string;

    $this->load->library('session');
    $this->session->set_userdata(array('test' => $string));
  }

public function test2()
  {
    $this->session->userdata('test');
  }

If I try with php native sessions:

public function test()
  {
    $string = "test";
    for($i = 0; $i < 10;$i++) $string .= $string;

    session_start();
    $_SESSION['test'] = $string;
  }

public function test2()
  {
    session_start();
    echo $_SESSION['test'];
  }

#2 / Jan 24, 2012 7:07am

broadband
20 posts

I checked in sql database, the user data is correct. I also “debugged” system/libraries/Session.php and I only found maybe the serialize/unserialize methods maybe causing the problem.

The php native sessions code works.
#3 / Jan 24, 2012 7:18am

broadband
20 posts

The problem only occurs when saving lots of data. String mb_strlen() = 80000. With $_SESSION it works.

#4 / Jan 24, 2012 1:39pm

InsiteFX

6819 posts

Read the bottom of this table!

-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
-- Table structure for CodeIgniter ci_sessions.
--
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `ci_sessions`;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS  `ci_sessions` (
  `session_id`    varchar(40)           DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL,
  `ip_address`    varchar(16)           DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL,
  `user_agent`    varchar(120)                      NOT NULL,
  `last_activity` int(10)      unsigned DEFAULT 0   NOT NULL,
  `user_data`     text,
  PRIMARY KEY (`session_id`),
  KEY `last_activity_idx` (`last_activity`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci ;

-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
--  `user_data` text,       COMMENT - maximum length of 65535 characters.
--  `user_data` mediumtext, COMMENT - maximum length of 16777215 characters.
--  `user_data` longtext,   COMMENT - maximum length of 4294967295 characters.
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

#5 / Jan 24, 2012 1:59pm

CroNiX
4713 posts

Also, you wrote different code for your 2 examples.

When you used $_SESSION, you ran session_start(); in each method before trying to set or read session data.

When you used CI session, you only loaded session in the test() method. You also need to load session in test2(), like you did for your $_SESSION. session_start() gets run when you load the session library. This is one of the libraries that should be autoloaded.
#6 / Jan 25, 2012 3:33am
broadband
20 posts
Thank you for the reply and the solution. The problem was user_data datatype. When I changed
```
ALTER TABLE `ci_session` CHANGE `user_data` `user_data` LONGTEXT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NOT NULL
```
everything worked fine.

And also yes I forgot to add $this->load->library(‘session’); in method test2()
```
public function test2()
  {
    $this->session->userdata('test');
  }
```
I just noticed when using database there is quite a performance hit.

#7 / Jan 25, 2012 3:45am

broadband

20 posts

public function test2()
  {
    $this->load->library('session')
    $this->session->userdata('test');
  }

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#8 / Jan 25, 2012 8:48am

InsiteFX
6819 posts

There’s only two libraries that I autoload and those are the database and sessions because they are always used!

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