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PHP Native PDO Session Storage

Simple, high-performance package for storing PHP sessions in a MySQL database using native \PDO. This package provides a robust database-backed session handler that works seamlessly with both native PHP applications and the Nette Framework.

🎯 Key Features

• Native PDO Implementation - Uses PHP's native PDO extension for reliable database connections with prepared statements
• Framework Agnostic - Works with native PHP applications out of the box
• Nette Framework Integration - Includes DI extension for seamless Nette integration
• Doctrine ORM Support - Optional entity mapping for Doctrine-based applications
• Automatic Garbage Collection - Probabilistic GC with configurable session lifetime (14 days default)
• CLI Safe - Automatically skips session operations in CLI mode to prevent errors
• Binary Data Support - Automatic Base64 encoding fallback for problematic session data
• Tracy Debugger Integration - Logs errors to Tracy when available
• Custom Table Names - Configurable database table name for multi-tenant applications

🏗️ Architecture Overview

The package consists of three main components that work together to provide database session storage:

🧩 Components

SessionStorage

The core component implementing PHP's \SessionHandlerInterface. It handles all session operations:

• Connection Management: Creates a dedicated PDO connection with proper character encoding (UTF-8) and error handling
• Session Reading: Retrieves session data from database, handles Base64-encoded data transparently
• Session Writing: Persists session data with automatic timestamp updates, falls back to Base64 encoding for binary data
• Session Destruction: Removes session records from the database
• Garbage Collection: Probabilistic cleanup (0.1% chance per request) removing sessions older than 14 days, limited to 500 records per run

SessionExtension

A Nette Framework DI extension that provides:

• Automatic Service Registration: Registers SessionStorage as a service
• Doctrine Integration: Automatically registers entity paths when Doctrine is present
• DBAL Connection Reuse: Can inherit database credentials from existing Doctrine DBAL connection
• Session Handler Setup: Automatically configures Nette's Session to use the database handler

SessionEntity

A Doctrine ORM entity class providing:

• Entity Mapping: Proper ORM annotations for the session table
• Type Safety: Strongly typed properties for session data
• Immutable Timestamps: Uses DateTimeImmutable for the last update field

📦 Installation

It's best to use Composer for installation, and you can also find the package on Packagist and GitHub.

To install, simply use the command:

You can use the package manually by creating an instance of the internal classes, or register a DIC extension to link the services directly to the Nette Framework.

Requirements

• PHP 8.1 or higher
• PDO extension (ext-PDO)
• MySQL database

🗄️ Database Setup

Create the database table core__session_storage (table name can be configured) or use Doctrine for automatic schema generation.

MySQL Table Schema

Note: The table can be used with Doctrine ORM or as a standalone MySQL table.

Using Doctrine Migrations

If you're using Doctrine ORM, the schema can be generated automatically from the SessionEntity class. Simply run your standard Doctrine migration commands:

⚙️ Configuration

Native PHP Usage

For standalone PHP applications, create a SessionStorage instance and register it as the session handler:

Warning: The session handler must be registered before calling session_start()!

Nette Framework Usage

Register the extension in your NEON configuration file:

The session storage will be configured automatically.

Manual Configuration

If you need to specify database credentials explicitly:

Automatic Doctrine DBAL Integration

When using the baraja-core/doctrine package, the extension automatically inherits database credentials from your existing DBAL connection. No additional configuration is required!

🔧 Advanced Configuration

Custom Table Name

You can customize the database table name in two ways:

1. Via Constructor Parameter:

2. Via Setter Method:

3. Via NEON Configuration (Nette):

Note: The default table name is core__session_storage. While the table name can be changed at runtime, it is not recommended.

Garbage Collection

The garbage collector runs automatically with a 0.1% probability on each request. It:

• Removes sessions that haven't been updated in 14 days
• Processes a maximum of 500 records per run to prevent long-running queries
• Is skipped entirely in CLI mode

🔒 Security Considerations

Session Data Encoding

When session data contains characters incompatible with MySQL's UTF-8 encoding, the package automatically:

1. Detects the encoding failure via PDO exception
2. Re-encodes the data using Base64 with a _BASE: prefix
3. Transparently decodes on read

This ensures binary data and special characters are safely stored without data loss.

CLI Mode Protection

Session operations are automatically skipped in CLI mode (detected by absence of $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']). This prevents:

• Errors when running console commands
• Unnecessary database connections in CLI scripts
• Accidental session manipulation from cron jobs

Error Handling

• Database query failures throw \RuntimeException with helpful error messages
• Session corruption errors are logged to Tracy (if available) and display a user-friendly error message
• Failed session writes gracefully degrade without crashing the application

🔍 How It Works

Session Lifecycle

1. Initialization: When a request arrives, SessionStorage creates a PDO connection
2. Reading: The read() method fetches session data by ID, creating a new record if none exists
3. Processing: Your application uses $_SESSION as normal
4. Writing: At request end, write() updates the session record with new data and timestamp
5. Cleanup: GC randomly triggers to remove old sessions (0.1% probability)

Data Flow

Retry Mechanism

The loadById() method includes a retry mechanism (up to 5 attempts) for handling race conditions when creating new session records. This ensures reliability under concurrent access.

📚 API Reference

SessionStorage

SessionExtension (Nette)

Configuration schema:

* Required unless Doctrine DBAL is available (credentials are then inherited automatically).

🐛 Troubleshooting

"Session was corrupted" Error

This error appears when session data cannot be written due to encoding issues. The package attempts to re-encode using Base64, but if this also fails:

1. Check your MySQL character set configuration
2. Ensure the haystack column uses utf8_unicode_ci or utf8mb4_unicode_ci
3. Clear corrupted sessions: DELETE FROM core__session_storage WHERE id = 'problematic_id'

"mb_substr" Function Not Available

The error Function "mb_substr" is not available indicates the mbstring extension is not installed. Install it:

Session Not Persisting

1. Verify the handler is registered before session_start()
2. Check database credentials and connectivity
3. Ensure the session table exists with correct schema
4. Verify you're not in CLI mode (sessions are disabled in CLI)

👤 Author

Jan Barášek

• Website: https://baraja.cz
• GitHub: https://github.com/baraja-core

📄 License

baraja-core/session is licensed under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more details.