Managing user sessions in CodeIgniter

Managing user sessions in CodeIgniter involves handling user authentication, maintaining session data, and providing access control to different parts of your application. CodeIgniter provides a Session Library that makes it easy to work with sessions. Here's how you can manage user sessions in CodeIgniter:

1. Configuration:

• Ensure that the session library is loaded in your autoload.php configuration file or load it manually in your controller or model.

$this->load->library('session'); 

2. Starting a Session:

• CodeIgniter automatically starts sessions when your controller is loaded. You don't need to manually start sessions.

3. Storing Data in Session:

• You can store data in the session using the set_userdata() method of the Session Library.

$this->session->set_userdata('user_id', 123); 

4. Retrieving Data from Session:

• You can retrieve data from the session using the userdata() method of the Session Library.

$user_id = $this->session->userdata('user_id'); 

5. Removing Data from Session:

• You can remove data from the session using the unset_userdata() method of the Session Library.

$this->session->unset_userdata('user_id'); 

6. Flash Data:

• Flash data is a type of session data that is only available for the next request, and then it is automatically deleted.
• You can store flash data using the set_flashdata() method.

$this->session->set_flashdata('message', 'Login successful.'); 

• You can retrieve flash data using the flashdata() method.

 $message = $this->session->flashdata('message'); 

7. Destroying Session:

• You can destroy the session and remove all session data using the sess_destroy() method.

$this->session->sess_destroy(); 

8. Accessing Session Data in Views:

• You can access session data directly in your views using the userdata() method.

 <?php echo $this->session->userdata('user_id'); ?>