Session works, just not the first time

[Guest]

Hello,

On my site, a user enters a value into a form, and if that value is not in my database, the code below is meant to give the user the message "The topic "value" has not been added. Add the topic "value"."  When I pull up my site in Firefox and enter in a non-existent value for the first time, the message says "The topic "" has not been added.  Add the topic ""."  Then if I enter in a second non-existent value, it works correctly.

When I pull up my site in Google Chrome and enter in a non-existent value for the first time, the message is populated with the last non-existent value that I had previously looked up before closing the tab.  Then the second time I look up another non-existent value, everything is fine.

So somehow, the first time I use the code below after loading the site in a browser, the session variable $find is not getting pushed through to the end, but the second time I use the code it all works fine.  Can anyone see any reason why?

Thanks

My index page has this:

<?php
session_start();
unset($_SESSION['find']);     
?>

<form action="search.php" method="post">
  <label>Enter Topic:
  <input type="text" name="find" size="55"/>
  <input type="hidden" name="searching" value="yes" />
  <input type="submit" name="search" value="Search" />
  </label>
  </form>

Then search.php has this:

<?php
ob_start();
session_start();
unset($_SESSION['find']);     
$find = strip_tags($_POST['find']);
$find = trim ($find);
$find = strtolower($find);
$_SESSION['find'] = $find;
?>

$anymatches=mysql_num_rows($result);
if ($anymatches == 0)
{

$_SESSION['find'] = $find;
header("Location:search2.php");
exit;
  
}

Then search2.php has this:

<?php
session_start();     
$_SESSION['find'] = $find;
?>

print "<p class=\"topic2\">The topic \"$find\" has not been added.</p>\n";

print "<p class=\"topic2\">Add the topic \"$find\".</p>\n";

[David_Powers]

In search2.php, the variable $find is undefined.

[Guest]

Hi David Powers,

I appreciate the response.  It certainly seems to be true that initially, $find is undefined in search2.php.  However, the second time the user is redirected to search2.php, $find appears to be defined, and defined correctly.

Even so, since I set "$_SESSION['find'] = $find;" and I have "session_start();" at the top of search2.php, I don't understand why $find would ever be undefined for search2.php.

In any event, do you have a suggestion for how I could define $find for search2.php?

Thanks,

John

[David_Powers]

ArizonaJohn wrote:

Even so, since I set "$_SESSION['find'] = $find;" and I have "session_start();" at the top of search2.php, I don't understand why $find would ever be undefined for search2.php.

In search1.php, you are getting the value of $find from the form submission. In search2.php, $find is never defined. It cannot be passed from search1.php. That's the whole idea of storing it as a session variable. Judging from the code you have posted here, $_SESSION['find'] is overwritten by the non-existent $find in search2.php. So, there's either something very strange going on, or you have posted only snippets of code that don't make sense in isolation.

[Mark_A__Boyd]

Since you're setting the session in search.php and you seem to be trying to use that data in search2.php, shouldn't that be the other way around in search2.php?

<?php
session_start();    
$find = isset($_SESSION['find']) ? $_SESSION['find'] : '';
?>

(I didn't test that isset() for syntax, but you may want to include it there.)

And on some servers, I find that I need to session_write_close() if a header("location") is in the next line. So maybe in search.php,

...
$_SESSION['find'] = $find;
session_write_close();
header("Location:search2.php");
exit;
}

[Edit: Placed session_write_close() BEFORE header()]

--
Mark A. Boyd
Keep-On-Learnin' 🙂
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