PHP - Sessions and Controllers

Question

If I may ask, I would like to ask about "sessions", "controllers" and "session controllers".

So let's start at the beginning: I have heard of MVC and tried it in C# (VS), but while I could grasp the concept, I didn't understand implementation. It all seemed so strange. Now in PHP the concept became even more clear.

Now I would like to ask whether or not a "session controller" is like a controller for the session. It seems straight forward, in wording, but maybe I have it wrong. Although I would preferably not implement MVC in the current project I am working on, yet I would like to perform some sort of "controller" that manages groupings of session content.

Although I would like to ask if it is possible to have the following script in your application:

//path: c:/xampp/htdocs/starvationproject/root/index.php
<?php
     include '../session/controller.php';
?>
<!DOCTYPE..........


//path: c:/xampp/htdocs/starvationproject/session/controller.php
//I have not coded this script yet, but it will perform tasks like
//setting the user, session variables etc.
<?php
     session_start();
?>
// An important question here. If I include this file in the previous, can
// I safely say that the session has been started in index because of the
// include, or do you have to manually type out session_start(); 
// in each page?

Lastly, I would like to ask if this file structure is correct or not, or rather if it is standard or nor, or whatever:

Folder Structure , where "multi" (as you can see) has a page named after each folder in "partial", where what I did is, based on the get request of the page in "multi", I included a partial, i.e:

if ($_GET['q'] == 'Add') {
    include '../partial/stockAct/add.php';
}
else if ($_GET['q'] == 'Update') {
    include '../partial/stockAct/update.php';
}

And then those "partial" files only held like a section with a form or something like that. As in the tv stays where it is, I'm just switching channels.

Answer 1

I'll do my best to help.

First let's talk about sessions. Sessions are used by the server to 'store' temporary information throughout a single browser session (this can be modified slightly but we won't go down that rabbit hole). In your specific situation, having a session Controller is unnecessary because the server handles all of the session logic. For example, on the login page, when the login form is pushed to a login script, you can simple add the user id to the session at that point and then no matter which page you move to, the user id will still remain in the session. The benefit is of course that you only need to set the session once and only access it when you require. This is where an MVC shines though as you can easily define a routing where all pages of a specific authentication type first go through to ensure the user is logged in/ has access to the page content.

For folder structure, I'd recommend some immediate changes. Firstly, I'm sure you are familiar with the talk of "public / public_html' folders? These folders are specifically name to represent the location where you put ALL of the files a front-end user would "see". This includes, front-end js files, css/ styles and in your case php PAGES. This folder SHOULD NOT however contain any back-end logic like database connections or verification scripts as this would give the front-end access to potentially sensitive information (ie. database login information which I am sure is found in your DB_Conn.php file).

To fix this I propose the following (assuming you would like to avoid the "MVC" structure).

ROOT
    ->Public //this is your WEB ROOT/ DOCUMENT ROOT folder
        ->Pages
        ->Style
        ->Scripts
        ->Assets
            ->Images
            ->etc.
    ->DB
        ->Connections
            ->db1_conn.php
            ->db2_conn.php
        ->Models
            ->User.php
            ->Posts.php
    ->Verification
        ->login.php
    ->etc

I'd like to finish with some advice as I used to build sites this way some time ago. MVCs take some time to learn, but their biggest advantage is the organization and flow of information. As a bonus, their process covers common issues like verification, security and data sanitization. Don't let them scare you, for the time it takes to learn then, they are well worth the capability you will gain from them.

I'd highly recommend Laravel. Version 5.5 just came out and oh boy is it a thing of beauty. Hope I could help at least a little!