[PHP-DOC] #22476 [Asn]: session.save_path documentation is misleading From: mccarthy36 at earthlink dot net (phpdoc <email protected>)
Date: 02/28/03

 ID: 22476
 User updated by: mccarthy36 at earthlink dot net
 Reported By: mccarthy36 at earthlink dot net
 Status: Assigned
 Bug Type: Documentation problem
 PHP Version: 4.3.0
 Assigned To: philip
 New Comment:

But according to what you quoted:
[
; NOTE: If you are using the subdirectory option for storing session
files
; (see session.save_path above), then garbage collection does
*not*
; happen automatically.
]

The note doesn't seem to make any qualification with respect to the
level, N. Taken at face value that note says that, unconditionally, if
you use the N;/path form, automatic garbage collection will not take
place.

At the moment I'm most concerned with clarifying what happens in the
more basic situation when only a path is specified. In that case,
automatic garbage collection occurs normally regardless of the path
depth?

Thanks

Previous Comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[2003-02-28 10:49:27] philip <email protected>

Yes, it is misleading. The following are exerpts from php.ini-dist
which explains it pretty well. Note that the '2' in the docs refers to
the 'N' in php.ini. Also note that the parameter separator is a
semi-colon (;) for all OS's and since ; is also for comments in
php.ini, one must quote the string when N is used.

[snip]

; Argument passed to save_handler. In the case of files, this is the
path
; where data files are stored. Note: Windows users have to change this

; variable in order to use PHP's session functions.
;
; As of PHP 4.0.1, you can define the path as:
;
; session.save_path = "N;/path"
;
; where N is an integer. Instead of storing all the session files in
; /path, what this will do is use subdirectories N-levels deep, and
; store the session data in those directories. This is useful if you
; or your OS have problems with lots of files in one directory, and is

; a more efficient layout for servers that handle lots of sessions.
;
; NOTE 1: PHP will not create this directory structure automatically.
; You can use the script in the ext/session dir for that
purpose.
; NOTE 2: See the section on garbage collection below if you choose to
; use subdirectories for session storage
;
; The file storage module creates files using mode 600 by default.
; You can change that by using
;
; session.save_path = "N;MODE;/path"
;
; where MODE is the octal representation of the mode. Note that this
; does not overwrite the process's umask.
session.save_path = "/tmp"

[snip]

; After this number of seconds, stored data will be seen as 'garbage'
and
; cleaned up by the garbage collection process.
session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440

; NOTE: If you are using the subdirectory option for storing session
files
; (see session.save_path above), then garbage collection does
*not*
; happen automatically. You will need to do your own garbage
; collection through a shell script, cron entry, or some other
method.
; For example, the following script would is the equivalent of
; setting session.gc_maxlifetime to 1440 (1440 seconds = 24
minutes):
; cd /path/to/sessions; find -cmin +24 | xargs rm

; PHP 4.2 and less have an undocumented feature/bug that allows you to
; to initialize a session variable in the global scope, albeit
register_globals
; is disabled. PHP 4.3 and later will warn you, if this feature is
used.
; You can disable the feature and the warning seperately. At this
time,
; the warning is only displayed, if bug_compat_42 is enabled.

session.bug_compat_42 = 1
session.bug_compat_warn = 1

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[2003-02-28 09:27:30] mccarthy36 at earthlink dot net

The Session documentation says:
[
If session.save_path's path depth is more than 2, garbage collection
will not be performed.
]

Honestly I never understood why that would be the case, but it seems to
not / no longer be the case.

I'm on Linux / Apache 1.3.26 / PHP 4.3.0 with a session.save_path of
home/username/data/sessions and garbage collection seems to be working
normally.

Sorry if I've misunderstood something, but this doesn't make sense to
me.

I hope that that section of the manual is just wrong / outdated,
because that would be a big downer if true. If it is wrong, then
obviously it would be helpful to have it corrected.

Thanks

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

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