Steam Authentication Session - php

Question

As you know, steam provides a script to allow people to connect on your site through the steam database.
I would like if I refresh the page I don't have to login again. But with steamapi I don't have any idea how to do it.
My Code:
<?php
require 'includes/lightopenid/openid.php';
include_once("db.php");
$_STEAMAPI = "MYAPI";
try {
$openid = new LightOpenID('http://test/dev1/index.php?id=1');
if(!$openid->mode) {
if(isset($_GET['login'])) {
$openid->identity = 'http://steamcommunity.com/openid/?l=english';
header('Location: ' . $openid->authUrl());
} else {
echo "<form action='?login' method='post'>";
echo "<input type='image' src='http://cdn.steamcommunity.com/public/images/signinthroughsteam/sits_small.png'>";
echo "</form>";
}
} elseif($openid->mode == 'cancel') {
echo 'User has canceled authentication!';
} else {
if($openid->validate()) {
$id = $openid->identity;
$ptn = "/^http:\/\/steamcommunity\.com\/openid\/id\/(7[0-9]{15,25}+)$/";
preg_match($ptn, $id, $matches);
$url = "http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamUser/GetPlayerSummaries/v0002/?key=$_STEAMAPI&steamids=$matches[1]";
$json_object= file_get_contents($url);
$json_decoded = json_decode($json_object);
foreach ($json_decoded->response->players as $player)
{
$sql_fetch_id = "SELECT * FROM member WHERE steamid = '$player->steamid'";
$query_id = mysqli_query($db, $sql_fetch_id);
if (mysqli_num_rows($query_id) == 0) {
$sql_steam = "INSERT INTO member (name, steamid, avatar) VALUES ('$player->personaname', '$player->steamid', '$player->avatar')";
mysqli_query($db, $sql_steam);
}
echo "Welcome back <b>" . $player->personaname . "</br>";
}
} else {
echo "User is not logged in.\n";
}
}
} catch(ErrorException $e) {
echo $e->getMessage();
}
?>

Answer 1

The general approach would be to setup session - in PHP, you can use $_SESSION to store this information. This allows you to store persistent server-side data per user.
Once you retrieve user's SteamID64, save it in the $_SESSION, e.g.:
$_SESSION['steamid'] = $someVal;
You can check if it's set on every subsequent request and act accordingly.
You can see full example here: https://github.com/SmItH197/SteamAuthentication
(Disclaimer: I'm not the author of the lib.)