[Techtalk] PHP, session variables & cookies

[Chris Hardy]

sessions are passed along either in a cookie (if enabled by client) or
appended to the url (if cookies are not allowed by client). What's nice
about sessions in php is the built-in functionality that checks first
whether cookies are allowed before appending a session id to the url. 

Regarding a privacy statement, it's probably sufficient to be more generic
by explaining that cookies and sessions are used to provide consistencey
between pages (ie so a person doesn't have to sign in again everytime they
navigate to a new page) but no information is collected about visitors
through those cookies and sessions. It's also a good idea to state when
cookies are set to expire and to name the cookies descriptively.  

hth
-chris


-----Original Message-----
From: techtalk-bounces at linuxchix.org [mailto:techtalk-bounces at linuxchix.org]
On Behalf Of Sue Stones
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 7:57 PM
To: techtalk at linuxchix.org
Subject: [Techtalk] PHP, session variables & cookies


I am looking into the legal implications of the website that I have just 
written, (reminderanywhere.com) and working on a privacy statement. 
(Well I'm not doing much of the work on the privacy statement, I made my 
partner do it).

But the issue has come up of whether we are using cookies.  I have kept 
track of the user id using a session variable.  But I don't know 
anything about how session variables work, and whether that involves 
using cookies to keep track of the session.  Does anyone understand the 
internals of PHP in the regard?

thanks

sue

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