What is the significance of starting a session in PHP, and what can happen if it is forgotten?

Starting a session in PHP is significant because it allows you to store and access data across multiple pages for a single user. If starting a session is forgotten, any data that needs to persist across pages will not be available, leading to errors or unexpected behavior in your application.

<?php
// Start the session
session_start();

// Now you can set session variables
$_SESSION['username'] = 'john_doe';
?>