Distinguish between two sessions in PHP - php

Question

I tried coding in the following way for one of the website over a localhost. say localhost/abc:
<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION['name']=$row['name']
?>
The output was good. but when the same code was used for another webpage over the same localhost say localhost/xyz. Then there was ambiguity between names. As if I need to distinguish between the sessions for xyz and abc.
So I tried this:
<?php
session_id(226);
session_name(veer);
session_start();
.
.
.//connection with database and all
.
$_SESSION['name']=$row['name'];
echo($_SESSION['name']);
?>
When another machine logged in over the same server then the session I created was accessible by that machine for same webpage.
Is there any solution. Or how to distinguish between two sessions.?

Answer 1

To put it in simple terms... you are accessing same memory area of server when you access two different sites on same web server using the same browser instance. Thus
http://localhost/xyz and http://localhost/abc are referring to the same site localhost and thus you will not start another session by session_start() but instead resume it. You can alternatively create virtual hosts as Jon said but for the sake of testing which I guess you are, just use different browsers.
Also, you cannot share session over different machines normally, so I think that's your logical mistake. Alternatively try
session_start();
echo (session_id());
on the top of the page and see if you are starting or resuming the same session which I think you are not. I think your page is storing same data in different sessions which you are mistaken as same session.

Answer 2

Use session_regenerate_id(); method in the second file(xyz).

Answer 3

this?
<?php
session_start();
if (!isset($_SESSION['xyz'])) { $_SESSION['xyz'] = array(); }
$_SESSION['xyz']['name'] = $row['name'];
?>
sometimes instead of doing the above i just prefix my session keys
example: $_SESSION['xyz_name'];
I did that after i realized that my CPanel has been used some sessions of its own
that caused a conflict to mine.

Answer 4

Requests from the same user agent to the same web server will share the same session, barring explicit configuration that depends on your exact server setup.
Normally this problem is avoided because the "other webpage" would actually be on another domain entirely, so the session cookie (and by extension the session data) would not be shared. This is also what you should do if you want to run separate applications independently on localhost: set up separate virtual hosts on separate internal domains.
You could also solve the problem purely in code by not using $_SESSION directly to store your data but a subkey based on some differentiating factor such as $_SESSION['SCRIPT_NAME']. A very simple example:
$sessionKey = "default";
if (strpos($_SESSION['SCRIPT_NAME'], "dir1/")) {
$sessionKey = "dir1";
}
else if (strpos($_SESSION['SCRIPT_NAME'], "dir2/")) {
$sessionKey = "dir2";
}
$_SESSION[$sessionKey]['mydata'] = 'foo';
However this last one is a really inelegant solution which I would not recommend.