WP Session Manager

Prototype session management for WordPress.

Description

Adds $_SESSION-like functionality to WordPress.

Every visitor, logged in or not, will be issued an instance of WP_Session. Their instance will be identified by an ID stored in the _wp_session cookie. Typically, session data will be stored in a WordPress transient, but if your installation has a caching system in-place (i.e. memcached), the session data might be stored in memory.

This provides plugin and theme authors the ability to use WordPress-managed session variables without having to use the standard PHP $_SESSION superglobal.

Installation

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I add session variables?

First, make a reference to the WP_Session instance. Then, use it like an associative array, just like $_SESSION:

$wp_session = WP_Session::get_instance();
$wp_session['user_name'] = 'User Name'; // A string
$wp_session['user_contact'] = array( 'email' => 'user@name.com' ); // An array
$wp_session['user_obj'] = new WP_User( 1 ); // An object

How long do session variables live?

By default, session variables will live for 24 minutes from the last time they were accessed - either read or write.

This value can be changed by using the wp_session_expiration filter:

add_filter( 'wp_session_expiration', function() { return 60 * 60; } ); // Set expiration to 1 hour

Additional Information

Original creator: ericmann