Are there any best practices for handling array manipulation in PHP sessions to avoid unexpected behavior like items disappearing from the shopping cart?

When manipulating arrays in PHP sessions, it's important to remember that the session data is serialized and stored in a file or database. When updating the array in the session, make sure to retrieve the session data, update the array, and then store it back in the session. This ensures that the changes are persisted correctly and items are not lost from the shopping cart. 

// Start the session
session_start();

// Retrieve the shopping cart array from the session
$cart = $_SESSION['cart'] ?? [];

// Manipulate the array (e.g. add an item)
$cart[] = 'new_item';

// Store the updated array back in the session
$_SESSION['cart'] = $cart;

Keywords

PHP sessions array manipulation shopping cart unexpected behavior handling

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