do i use ci_sessions to store session data - php

Im developing site for a travel site, in the process when a user searches I do manipulation on the database result then store it in session. Which stores the data in the ci_session database. By following this method I'm able to easily filter the data from
$this->session->userdata();
A normal search which results in 4 hotels the session data goes more than 20kb, in actual server environment it is possible that the result will be more than 200 hotels, i.e. 4000kb data for a single user on each row, in ci_session table.
this process is making the app very slow, What other approach i can follow to make the search result much faster.

You can store the session data in your database. CI Sessions have the ability to handle that. No need to do it yourself.
Read the chapter in the manual how to configure it properly. Choose wisely what you write into the "session" since lots of sessiondata in the database could make the requests slow if you need them on every site.

Related

Store Data in a PHP Session to prevent too many MySQL-Connections

I recently started saving data that I use several times into a PHP session.
For example, I have to use the active countries for each load of the website. Instead of creating a database connection every time, I have now saved this data in a session. I do that with all the data that I use several times. I also created banners in a multi-level array and saved this array in a session.
On first Loading of the Website, all the data that i need, are collected and stored in several php session.
Now I have about 10 different PHP sessions at the start of the website but practically no database connection anymore.
Is this procedure workable in this way?
Do you see a risk? For me it's all about the performance of the site. I try to create as few database connections as possible for recurring tasks
Am I making a reasoning mistake?
There are no sensitive data in the session. For example, All Country for a select field with all (necessary) countries. The array is then Key => Country. And so I create the Select field via "foreach".

Database storage vs Cookies - To store form data

Good day to all,
I have a form with around 90 to 100 fields, divided into sub forms, which are loaded using ajax each time a form has to be displayed. but i would like to retain the data on the form fields every time a subform is loaded(lets say on an accidental page refresh or even if the user is switching between sub forms). What is the best way that this can be done.
I was thinking that i can store it in cookies or lets say in the database. But, storing it in the database would mean that i would have to query for the fields data every time a sub form is loaded. And again, if it was cookies, it has to read the data stored in the cookie files. I need some help with deciding what is the most efficient way, more in terms of speed.
What is the best way among these, or is there any other possibility to retain the fields data in the sub forms, every time they are loaded (which are loaded via AJAX each time.)
I am working with PHP and Codeigniter framework.
Thanks!!
A form like that needs to be durably stored. I would consider session state to smooth out the sub form loads, with writes to the database whenever the user updates something of consequence. Personally, I would start with a database-only solution, and then add session state if performance is an issue.
Cookies aren't meant to store large amounts of data. Even if it were possible, they bloat the request considerably (imagine 100 form fields all being transmitted with every request).
Local storage in the browser is also an option, though I would consider other options first.
I would first simplify it by using serialize:
$data = serialize(array_merge($_POST,$olddata));
Then that may be enough for you, but it's now super easy to store it anywhere since it is just a string. To reform it into its original state:
$data = unserialize($data);
.. wherever you end up pulling it from - database,session,etc..
Prose of database
It can also access from other computer too
You can store far far more data then cookie
Cones
If you retrive data by ajax it coukd cose more load on server
Cookie
Faster than database no query , fetch and all process .
Cones
Limited amount of space
However you can use local storage
So answer is database storage

PHP One time database query on application startup

I have a ajax based PHP app (without any frameworks etc.).
I need to retrieve some records from the database (html select element items) ONCE, and once only, during application startup, store it in a PHP array, and have this array available for future use to prevent future database calls, for ALL future users.
I could do this easily in Spring with initializing beans. And this bean would have the application scope (context) so that it could be used for ALL future user threads needing the data. That means the database retrieval would be once, only during app boot, and then some bean would hold the dropdown data permanently.
I can't understand how to replicate the usecase in PHP.
There's no "application" bootstrapping as such, not until the first user actually does something to invoke my php files.
Moreover, there is no application context - records retrieved for the first user will not be available to another user.
How do I solve this problem? (Note: I don't want to use any library like memcache or whatever.)
If you truly need to get the data only the first time the app is loaded by any user, than you could write something that gets the data from your database, and then rewrites the html page that you're wanting those values in. That way when the next user comes along, they are viewing a static page that has been written by a program.
I'm not so sure that 1 call to the database everytime a user hits your app is going to kill you though. Maybe you've got a good reason, but avoiding the database all but 1 time seems rediculous IMO.
If you need to hit the database one time per visitor, you could use $_SESSION. At the beginning of your script(s) you would start up a session and check to see if there are values in it from the database. If not, it's the user's first visit and you need to query the database. Store the database values in the $_SESSION superglobal and carry on. If the data is in the session, use it and don't query the database.
Would that cover you?

synchronize different user sessions when events happened in PHP

I’m writing a social networking application and I want to synchronize different user sessions.
My context is following:
userA is logged and has an array of his contacts in session.
userB is logged and has an array of his contacts in session.
userA adds userB as a contact.
So, Contact table (DB) sees a new record
And userA has an update of his array of contacts (easy because the event happens on userA navigation side)
My need is following:
I want now to synchronize automatically userB’s session so that his array of contacts is refreshed
without doing a sql query to check the contacts table (db). I want that in order to avoid making too many sql queries to check that.
Do you have any suggestions?
I’m using CodeIgniter (PHP) and the session is managed with database.
Thanks a lot
This is not possible without doing a sql query to check the contacts table. Even if you hold your sessions in sql table you still have to query for the data
You want to update a copy of the data (userAs session) without refering to the master set of data. This is just not going to work.
With it's shared nothing architecture, this is going to be hard to implement in PHP.
The only sensible way to achieve this in anything approaching realtime is to maintain a semaphore for each current user session - and set that semaphore when the session data should be re-loaded. And at that point you must read the data from the database.
Much of this could be done within the session handler - which is probably the most sensible place to handle it - but you need to be aware that the semaphore is therefore volatile and code it appropriately (e.g. using optimistic locking around reading/writing the semaphore).

quantity of data that should be stored in session

Assumption
I understand that it's not good to store to much data and it is needed to be as simple.
State today
Now I use as minimum needed and using simple data types (int and strings)
mainly for storing user's id and to tell if he is logged in.
must of my functions are static or singleton that has to be built each post/get.
I have trouble to representing the current state and changing it.
and get a largely static site.
most of state representing goes into javascript .
Target
for the other hand if I'll create a object that represent the entire website it will be much easier for me to maintain user's input , including database interaction.
simple question, how much data should be stored there?
example
One of the things i want to implement is
objects that relate to Database tables,
Let's take a page for a "car.update()".
Now if i store an object for it, that extends a connection to the Database with methods
for CRUD.
When I handle a post back from that page with details i could just put them in properties needed and call the update method.
situation now: I need to create a new object with that details and make an static update
Another example
storing previous search result and filter it using new data
In many cases the ideal amount would be none. Store the username in a cookie along with an HMAC hash used to verify the cookie was created by your site, and get everything else from the database (or cache) as needed. This makes it easy to load balance across servers because any server can handle any request and there's no state that needs to be shared between them.
This approach wouldn't be appropriate for banking or other top-security uses because if someone gets your cookie they connect as you. But for sites where you're not doing anything super critical it's great. The risk can also be mitigated somewhat by adding an expiration mechanism to your cookie handling. See chubbards great answer related to another HMAC question for more info.
note you can switch the way PHP stores data using session_set_save_handler. Then you don't have to change the calls and you improve performances/maintenance with the efficiency of database.
The minimum would be the user I.D.—assuming it is a logging in type of interface. But it is often helpful to include the most common aspects of that, like the user's permission and other items which are stored in the database, but are frequently referenced when constructing pages.
You shouldn't store an enormous amount of data, but you can without problems store some user-information if it helps you server you pages faster.
But if you want to build a more dynamic website, you will probably retreive more and more data from the database. So when you're connecting to a database after all, you could skip storing all kinds of information in the session, because you can just as well get them from the database. Most databases (including MySQL) have a quite efficient query cache that will make repeated queries lightning fast.
So in that case you'll need to save little more than the userid and maybe a small amount of flags.

Categories