recurser

If you are using CakePHP in conjunction with an existing PHP application, chances are you need to import the normal application’s session into cake.

1. Create a file called session_import.php or something similar in your cake app/config directory with the following contents :

   <?php
   if (!defined('DS')) {
            define('DS', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR);
   }
   if (!defined('ROOT')) {
            define('ROOT', dirname(dirname(dirname(__FILE__))));
   }
   if (!defined('APP_DIR')) {
            define('APP_DIR', basename(dirname(dirname(__FILE__))));
   }
    
   if (!defined('CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH')) {
            define('CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH', ROOT);
   }
   if (!defined('WEBROOT_DIR')) {
            define('WEBROOT_DIR', basename(dirname(__FILE__)));
   }
   if (!defined('WWW_ROOT')) {
            define('WWW_ROOT', dirname(__FILE__) . DS);
   }
   if (!defined('CORE_PATH')) {
            if (function_exists('ini_set')) {
                     ini_set('include_path', ini_get('include_path') . 
   PATH_SEPARATOR .
   CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH . PATH_SEPARATOR . ROOT . DS . APP_DIR . DS);
                     define('APP_PATH', null);
                     define('CORE_PATH', null);
            } else {
                     define('APP_PATH', ROOT . DS . APP_DIR . DS);
                     define('CORE_PATH', CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH . DS);
            }
   }
    
   include APP_PATH . 'config' .DS  .'core.php';
   include CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH .DS . 'cake' . DS . 'basics.php';
   include CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH .DS . 'cake' . DS . 'config' . DS. 'paths.php';
   include CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH .DS . 'cake' . DS . 'libs' . DS . 'object.php';
   include CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH .DS . 'cake' . DS . 'libs' . DS . 'security.php';
   include CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH .DS . 'cake' . DS . 'libs' . DS . 'session.php';
    
    
   function init_framework($session) {
   	$s = new CakeSession(null);
   	$s = new CakeSession(null);
   	$s->renew();
   	
   	// Basic authentication information
   	$s->write('User.id', $session['UserID']);
       
       // Write whatever session information you want to share with Cake
   }
   ?>

   Set whatever session attributes you care about in the init_framework() function.
2. Add the following to the end of your app/config/bootstrap.php file.

   // Get the session from the original login 
   if(isset($_COOKIE[PHP_SESSION_ID])){ 
           session_id($_COOKIE[PHP_SESSION_ID]); 
   } 
   session_start();

   Where PHP_SESSION_ID is the session id string you are using for cookies.
3. Somewhere in your existing application (the most sensible place is probably just you have authenticated the user’s login), include your new cake session_import.php script (in my case the cake application is in a sub-folder called ext ) and initialise your framework.

// Initialise the framework sessions 
require_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/ext/app/config/session_import.php'; 
 
init_framework($_SESSION);

Based on this post to the cake newsgroup – thanks to whoever posted it!