PHP Session with an Incomplete Object

Question

I'm getting an error I don't know how to fix so I wondering if I could get some help.

This is the error

Fatal error: process_form() [<a href='function.process-form'>function.process-form</a>]: The script tried to execute a method or access a property of an incomplete object. Please ensure that the class definition &quot;Template&quot; of the object you are trying to operate on was loaded _before_ unserialize() gets called or provide a __autoload() function to load the class definition in /home/twinmeddev/html/template_add.php on line 44

I get this error in the process_form() function. So what I get out of this is that, its thinking I didn't load the class for the template. Which in fact I did up at the top. The include 'inc/item.class.php'; Do I have to re-include it in the function?

Here's the code for the particular page with the error. You can see I have everything included like it should be. Where have I gone wrong?

<?php
include 'inc/prep.php';
include 'inc/header.class.php';
include 'inc/item.class.php';
include 'inc/template.class.php';
include 'inc/formhelper.class.php';
include 'inc/formvalidator.class.php';
include_once( 'inc/config/config.php' ) ;
include_once( 'inc/DBE.class.php' ) ;
include_once( 'inc/GenFuncs.php' ) ;
include_once( 'inc/Search.class.php' ) ;

session_start(); 

//Verify that user is logged in.
VerifyLogin($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] . "?" . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']);

if(array_key_exists('_submit',$_POST)) {
 if($fv_errors = validate_form()) {
  show_form($fv_errors);
 } else {
  process_form();
 }
}
else {
 // The form wasn't submitted or preview was selected, so display
 show_form();
}

function validate_form(){
}

function process_form(){
 global $mysqli;

 echo var_dump($_SESSION);

 $Template = $_SESSION['template'];
 $Template->name = $_POST['name'];
 $Template->descript = $_POST['descript'];
 $Template->user = $_SESSION['User'];
 $Template->customer = $_SESSION['CustID'];
 $Template->status = $_POST['status'];
 $Template->insert();

 //header("Location: template.php");
}

Answer 1

It's missing the serialize/unserialize of your template class.

Take a look here for an working example I gave on another question of yours.

For instance, you probably want this:

<?php
  $_SESSION['template'] = serialize($template);
?>

and

<?php
  $template = unserialize($_SESSION['template']);
?>

Edit:

reading your comment about moving it to the top gives one hint.

The automatic serialization/unserialization occurs when you call session_start().
That means the order in which you include your files and call the session_start() is very important.

For example:

This would be wrong:

<?php
session_start();
include 'inc/template.class.php';
?>

While this would be correct:

<?php
include 'inc/template.class.php';
session_start();
?>

Now, I see in your example that it is in the CORRECT order, but I also notice you do many other includes before including template.class.php

Would it be possible that one of those includes (perhaps prep.php or header.class.php) does call start_session() too?
If yes, that was your issue (session_start() being called before your template.class.php).

Answer 2

How big are the objects that you are putting in the session? I got a similar error once when my objects were larger than the space we had allotted for the session in the php.ini file. If the object was too large, it would come back as being empty when it shouldn't have been.

After that, I just started storing the object's PK in the Session and looking it up if I needed it instead of carrying around the entire object itself.

You could also increase the size of the session in the INI file and see if that makes a difference.

Answer 3

i tried to store objects in session variable too. and yes i experienced the same problem as MackDaddy. and its solved by moving the include of the class to the first.

so..

require_once("class.someclass.php");
require_once("display.php");

worked

but not...

require_once("display.php");
require_once("class.someclass.php");

hmm...wonder whats the rational? and what if we have 2 or more different objects? which one comes first?