What best practices should PHP developers follow to prevent session variables from being lost or deleted during page reloads or navigation within a website?

Session variables can be lost or deleted during page reloads or navigation within a website if the session is not properly managed. To prevent this, PHP developers should ensure that session_start() is called at the beginning of each page where session variables are used, and that session_regenerate_id() is called after a user logs in to prevent session fixation attacks. Additionally, developers should set session.cookie_lifetime to a reasonable value to prevent sessions from expiring too quickly. 

<?php
session_start();

// Regenerate session ID after successful login
if($loggedIn) {
    session_regenerate_id();
}

// Set cookie lifetime to 1 day
ini_set('session.cookie_lifetime', 86400);
?>

Keywords

PHP session variables session management cookies form submission

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