Check if PHP session has already started

php session session-variables
Logan picture Logan · Jun 6, 2011 · Viewed 465.4k times · Source

I have a PHP file that is sometimes called from a page that has started a session and sometimes from a page that doesn't have session started. Therefore when I have session_start() on this script I sometimes get the error message for "session already started". For that I've put these lines:

if(!isset($_COOKIE["PHPSESSID"]))
{
  session_start();
}

but this time I got this warning message:

Notice: Undefined variable: _SESSION

Is there a better way to check if session has already started?

If I use @session_start will it make things work properly and just shut up the warnings?

Answer

lovelyramos picture lovelyramos · Aug 31, 2013

Recommended way for versions of PHP >= 5.4.0 , PHP 7

if (session_status() == PHP_SESSION_NONE) {
    session_start();
}

Reference: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.session-status.php

For versions of PHP < 5.4.0

if(session_id() == '') {
    session_start();
}

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