What are the benefits and drawbacks of using sessions versus hidden fields to pass variables between PHP scripts, as discussed in the forum thread?

When passing variables between PHP scripts, sessions provide a more secure and convenient method compared to using hidden fields. Sessions store data on the server side, preventing users from tampering with the values. However, sessions require server resources and may impact performance for high-traffic websites. Hidden fields, on the other hand, store data in the HTML form itself, making it easier to implement but less secure as users can modify the values.

// Using sessions to pass variables between PHP scripts
session_start();
$_SESSION['variable_name'] = $value;

// Retrieving the variable in another script
session_start();
$value = $_SESSION['variable_name'];