How to use session in PHP

Today we will explain to you how to use session in PHP. Here you can understand how we can start a session, create session variable, retrieve session variable and destroy the session.

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A session is a method which is used to store information on the server. It can be accessed in multiple webpages. We use `$_SESSION` to create and retrieve the session variables and it is a super global variable. To store the information in session, we need to start the session using the `session_start()` function.

Way to use session

1. csv" title="Create Session variable">Create Session variable
2. Retrieve Session variable
3. Destroy Session variable
4. Destroy Session

1. Create Session variable

Here, we show how to create session variables. We take one example to store logged in user details in session which will be retrieved in all other web pages.

<?php

// start a session
session_start();

// create session variables
$_SESSION['user_id'] = '1';
$_SESSION['user_name'] = 'Cluemediator';

?>

2. Retrieve Session variable

In other webpages we don't need to set the value of session variables. Using `$_SESSION` global variable we can retrieve the data after starting the session by `session_start()` function.

<?php

// start a session
session_start();

// retrieve session variables
echo "User Id : " .$_SESSION['user_id']."</br>";
echo "User Name : " .$_SESSION['user_name'];

?>

// Output:
User Id : 1
User Name : Cluemediator

3. Destroy Session variable

We can remove session variables using the `unset` function. If we want to remove `$_SESSION['user_id']` then we can write as below.

<?php

// start a session
session_start();

print_r($_SESSION);

// destroy session variable
unset($_SESSION['user_id']);

print_r($_SESSION);

?>

4. Destroy Session

We can remove all sessions using `session_destroy()` like below.

<?php

// start a session
session_start();

// destroy session
session_destroy();

?>

That’s it for today.
Thank you for reading. Happy Coding!