Sessions are driving me to insanity

[Peter Jay Salzman]

I'm writing a blogging app that uses an image file of a short string that
users need to type in to comment. I've heard it called a "captcha" system.

The problem is that the file that creates string and the image of the string
can't access $_SESSION, and so has no way of passing the string to the
receiving form.



view_by_permali nk.php (Smarty template, actually):

Verification String:
<img src="captcha2.p hp?{$sessionNam e}={$sessionId} " />

Enter the string in the image:
<form action="add.com ment.php" method="post">
<input type="text" name="userCaptc haInput" />
</form>



captcha2.php:

// Create the string.
(snip)

// Define colors and create the image.
(snip)

imagestring ($image, 5, 1, 1, $cmntPass, $colorBlue);
ImagePNG( $image );
ImageDestroy( $image );

session_id( $_REQUEST['PHPSESSID'] );
start_session() ;
$_SESSION['captcha'] = $cmntPass;



add_comment.php :

echo '<pre>'; print_r($_SESSI ON); echo '</pre>';
echo '<pre>'; print_r($_POST) ; echo '</pre>';
exit;




The problem is that I haven't found a way to send the random string from
captcha2.php to add_comment.php .

I've tried and tried, but I can't seem to access $_SESSION variables in
captcha2.php. I think sending the image somehow interfers with setting the
session.

How can I start a session and set up a session variable from captcha2.php?

Thanks!
Pete

[Oli Filth]

Re: Sessions are driving me to insanity

Peter Jay Salzman said the following on 17/12/2005 17:07:[color=blue]
> I'm writing a blogging app that uses an image file of a short string that
> users need to type in to comment. I've heard it called a "captcha" system.
>
> The problem is that the file that creates string and the image of the string
> can't access $_SESSION, and so has no way of passing the string to the
> receiving form.
>
>
> captcha2.php:
>
> // Create the string.
> (snip)
>
> // Define colors and create the image.
> (snip)
>
> imagestring ($image, 5, 1, 1, $cmntPass, $colorBlue);
> ImagePNG( $image );
> ImageDestroy( $image );
>
> session_id( $_REQUEST['PHPSESSID'] );
> start_session() ;
> $_SESSION['captcha'] = $cmntPass;
>[/color]

Firstly, there is no function called start_session() , it's session_start() .

Secondly, there must be *no* output from a script before session_start()
is called.

If you had had error_reporting set to E_ALL, you would already have
spotted these mistakes... ;)


--
Oli