-
Accessing Session Data
-
Determining if a Session exists
-
Storing data in Session
-
Deleting Session
-
Laravel Session in controller __construt()
Sessions are used to store informations across the requests. Laravel provides various drivers to store session data:
file, cookie, apc, array, Memcached, Redis, and
database.
- file - sessions are stored in storage/framework/sessions.
- cookie - sessions are stored in secure, encrypted cookies.
- database - sessions are stored in a relational database.
- memcached / redis - sessions are stored in one of these cache based stores.
- array - sessions are stored in a PHP array. It is used during testing and prevents the data stored in the session from being persisted.
Using Database Session Driver
When using the
database session driver, you will need to create a table to contain the session items.
Below is an example Schema declaration for the 'session' table:
Schema::create('sessions', function ($table){
$table->string('id')->unique();
$table->unsignedInteger('user_id')->nullable();
$table->string('ip_address', 45)->nullable();
$table->text('user_agent')->nullable();
$table->text('payload');
$table->integer('last_activity');
});
You may use the
session:table Artisan command to automatically generate this migration:
php artisan session:table
php artisan migrate
Accessing Session Data
To
access data stored in session, you can use the
session() method of the
Request instance, or the
global session() helper.
Accessing the session via a Request instance
After getting the
Request instance, we can use the
get('sesion_name') method to get the session data.
$value = $request->session()->get('key');
You may also pass a
default value as the second argument to the
get() method, to be returned if the specified key does not exist in the session.
You can also pass a function as the default value:
$value = $request->session()->get('key', 'default');
$value = $request->session()->get('key', function(){
return 'default';
});
You can use the
all() method to get an array with all session data.
$sess = $request->session()->all();
The Global session() function
Similar with the
$request->session()->get('key') method, the
session() function receives a string argument for the session key, and optional, a second argument for 'default' value:
Route::get('home', function(){
//Retrieve the value of the session with key 'name'
$value = session('name');
//Specifying a default value
$value = session('name', 'default');
});
By default, Laravel session expires after 120 minutes. To modify the session lifetime, open the config/session.php file, and change the value of the 'lifetime' key.
Determining if a Session exists
To determine if a Session exists and
is not null, use the
use() method:
if($request->session()->has('users')){
//
}
To determine if a Session is present,
even if its value is null, you may use the
exists() method:
if($request->session()->exists('users')){
//
}
Storing data in Session
To store data in session, you can use the
put() method or the
session() function.
- The
put() method will take two arguments, the '
key' and the '
value':
$request->session()->put('key', 'value');
- When the
session() helper is called with an array of key / value pairs, those values will be stored in the session:
session(['key'=> 'value']);
Deleting Session
To delete session, you can use one of these methods:
- forget('key') - deletes the specified session.
$request->session()->forget('key');
- pull('key', 'default') - returns data from session, and delete it afterwards.
$value = $request->session()->pull('key', 'default');
- flush() - deletes all sessions data.
$request->session()->flush();
If you want to add the value of a session directly in blade template, you can use one of these formats:
@if(session('key'))
{{session('key')}}
@endif
Or:
{{session('key', '')}}
Practical example
1. We create a controller called
SessionController.
Copy the following code and save it in "
app/Http/Controllers/SessionController.php".
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class SessionController extends Controller {
public function getSession(Request $request){
if($request->session()->has('my_name')) return "Session 'my_name' = ". $request->session()->get('my_name');
else return 'No data in session';
}
public function putSession(Request $request){
$request->session()->put('my_name','Mar Plo');
return 'Data has been added to session "my_name"';
}
public function deleteSession(Request $request){
if($request->session()->has('my_name')) $request->session()->forget('my_name');
return 'my_name session has been deleted.';
}
}
2. Now, set up the routes to test the SessionController.
Add the following code in the
routes/web.php file:
Route::get('session/get','SessionController@getSession');
Route::get('session/put','SessionController@putSession');
Route::get('session/delete','SessionController@deleteSession');
3. Visit the following URL to
add data in session:
//localhost:8000/session/put
- Output:
Data has been added to session "my_name"
4. Visit the following URL to
get data from session:
//localhost:8000/session/get
- Output:
Session 'my_name' = Mar Plo
5. Visit the following URL to
delete "my_name" session:
//localhost:8000/session/delete
- Output:
my_name session has been deleted.
6. Now, if you visit again the URL:
//localhost:8000/session/get , it will display:
No data in session
Laravel Session in controller __construt()
Laravel Sessions are initiated in middleware; the session cannot be directly accessed in controller's constructor because the middleware has not run yet.
To use Session in controller's __construt(), use the
$this->middleware(Callback) method directly in your constructor, and work with Session in the "
Callback" function passed as argument.
public function __construct(){
$this->middleware(function($request, $next){
//Your code with Session ..
return $next($request); //<- this is required
});
}
- Documentation:
Laravel - Sessions
