cakephp (1.3) - accessing session vars in views

Question

If I do a print_r($_SESSION) in my page.ctp I get:

Array
(
    [Config] => Array
        (
            [userAgent] => b3346028c15f82ac5d4b25c4f50d8718
            [time] => 1281034201
            [timeout] => 100
        )

    [manualLogout] => 1
    [Message] => Array
        (
        )

    [Auth] => Array
        (
            [redirect] => /events/add/controller:events
        )

    [facebookSynced] => 1
)

The var facebookSynced I set in my controller with $this->Session-write() - and there it is in the session as expected. But when I do a pr($this->Session) or a pr($session) from page.ctp I get:

SessionHelper Object
(
    [helpers] => Array
        (
        )

    [__active] => 1
    [valid] => 
    [error] => 
    [_userAgent] => b3346028c15f82ac5d4b25c4f50d8718
    [path] => /
    [lastError] => 
    [security] => medium
    [time] => 1281016202
    [sessionTime] => 1281034202
    [watchKeys] => Array
        (
        )

    [id] => 
    [host] => 
    [timeout] => 
    [base] => /Eclipse/Calc_1.3.2/trunk
    [webroot] => /Eclipse/Calc_1.3.2/trunk/
    [here] => /Eclipse/Calc_1.3.2/trunk/users/login
    [params] => Array
        (
            [controller] => users
            [action] => login
            [named] => Array
                (
                )

            [pass] => Array
                (
                )

            [plugin] => 
            [form] => Array
                (
                )

            [url] => Array
                (
                    [url] => users/login
                )

            [models] => Array
                (
                    [0] => User
                )

        )

    [action] => login
    [data] => 
    [theme] => 
    [plugin] => 
)

How do I access my session with the facebookSynced var in it, and what is the difference between these two 'sessions'. Extra info: in core.php I have:

Configure::write('Session.save', 'php');
Configure::write('Session.cookie', 'CAKEPHP');
Configure::write('Session.save', 'custom_sesh');
Configure::write('Session.timeout', '180');
Configure::write('Session.checkAgent', true);
Configure::write('Session.start', true);

The contents of custom_sesh is just one line:

ini_set('session.cookie_lifetime', 0);

Answer 1

The first result from print_r($_SESSION) is a list of the values of the actual session variable.

The second result from pr($this->Session) shows the contents of CakePHP's Session helper object.

Both are entirely different things. If you wanted to access the value of your session variable facebookSynced you would probably want to do something like:

$foo = $_SESSION["facebookSynced"];

Answer 2

In your view you should be using the Session helper.

echo $session->read('Key.value');

Where you have written in something like, in your controller,

$this->Session->write('Key.value','example');