Posted by Rich on 02/19/06 08:41

Hi there,

Apologies if this has already been asked before, but..

I'm relatively new to PHP, I can do the basic stuff with sessions, cookies
and MySQL. What i'm looking to do is, something like this:

A user is provided a unique code to access my site, randomly generated.
A user logs in to my site with the specific code.
They are registered as 'online'.
If somebody has inadvertantly acquired this unique code and attempts to
login with the same code, and the existing user is already using it - deny
entry.
If the original users PC crashes, or another problem causes them to
disconnect from the site - detect this and allow them entry next time.

Now, my issue is this. I can set a session/cookie when the user logs in, no
problem at all. But how can I detect whether or not their session has died,
and not expired?

I guess I can use MySQL to update a field if they are online, but I couldn't
think of anything at all server-side to detect if their session has died,
and to flush that field?

Any helpful advice and pointers are welcome.

Thanks in advance,
Rich

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