Passing data in $_Session vars

I have a page (BuildingChk.php) that is used by several other pages. Depending on the page that it came from, it passes data in $_SESSION['Data'].

The page I'm having trouble with needs to add 2 variables to session variable. I'm building the session variable like so:

$_SESSION['Data'] = $ROW2['SEQ'].$ROW2['NOR'].$ROW2['SOU'];

This does work.

My problem is the length of "NOR" and "SOU". They could be any where from 1 to 4 chars.

Is there a way to set them to 4 chars before building the string?

Also, the following code comes from the page that get's the results.

I've modified the code so that it is only looking for 2 chars in north and south (quick fix).

echo $_SESSION['Data']." ";
$strt = substr($_SESSION['Data'],0,9);
$work = $strt."%";
$north = substr($_SESSION['Data'],12,13);
$south = substr($_SESSION['Data'],14,15);
echo $strt." ";
echo $work." ";
echo $north." ";
echo $south." ";

The results that I'm getting from the "echo" statements are as follows:
NY10350005755251
NY1035000
NY1035000%
5251
51

Everything is correct except for the $north. Why is it returning 4 chars instead of 2?

Thanks
Glenn

breeze351

Asked: 2013-11-12

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1 Solution

LVL 84

Dave BaldwinFixer of ProblemsCommented: 2013-11-12

Because the second number is supposed to be the length, not the ending position.

$north = substr($_SESSION['Data'],12,2);
$south = substr($_SESSION['Data'],14,2);

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http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.substr.php

LVL 12

zappafan2k2Commented: 2013-11-12

Is there any reason you can't simply make $_SESSION['Data'] an array?

$_SESSION['Data'] = array(
    'north' => '...',
    'south' => '...',
    'other' => '...',
    'stuff' => '...
);

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LVL 111

Ray PaseurCommented: 2013-11-13

The PHP session is an array. It can have as many data elements as you want. Clogging them up together is a sure way to become confused!

Here is something like what I would recommend. (I would also avoid the uppercase variable names.)

// NOT THIS: $_SESSION['Data'] = $ROW2['SEQ'].$ROW2['NOR'].$ROW2['SOU'];
$_SESSION['seq'] = $ROW2['SEQ'];
$_SESSION['nor'] = $ROW2['NOR'];
$_SESSION['sou'] = $ROW2['SOU'];

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