my zend session name spacing does not work - oop

Question

I am new to Zend and very keen to learn, so I would really appreciate some help and guidance.
I am trying to create a 'method in a class' that will save the session variables of product pages visited by members to a site i.e
i,e examplesite com/product/?producttype= 6
I want to save the number 6 in a session variable. I also do not want to have a global session for the entire site; I just want it for selected pages. So, I guess I have to have Zend_Session::start() on the selected page; but I am not clear how this should be done.
Should I instantiate it in the page view page. i.e products page or do this in the indexAction() method for the products page. I have attempted to instantiate it below but it did not work.
public function rememberLastProductSearched()
{ //my attempt to start a session start for this particular page.
Zend_Session::start();
}
$session->productSearchCategory = $this->_request->getParam('product-search-category');
return" $session->productSearchCategory ";
}
else
{
//echo " nothing there
return " $session->productSearchCategory";
//";
}
}
With the rememberLastProductSearched() method I was trying to get the method to first check whether the user had searched for a new product or just arrived at the page by default. i.e whether he had used the get() action to search for a new product. If the answer is no, then I wanted the system to check whether their had been a previous saved session variable. so in procedural syntax it would have gone like this:
if(isset($_Get['producttype']))
{
//$dbc database connection
$producttype = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc,trim($_GET['producttype']));
}
else
if(isset($_SESSION['producttype'])){
$producttype = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc,trim($_SESSION['producttype']));
}
Can you please help me with the Zend/oop syntax. I am totally confused how it should be?

Answer 1

you're asking about simple work flow in an action, it should begin something like:
//in any controller
public function anyAction()
{
//open seesion, start will be called if needed
$session = new Zend_Session_Namespace('products');
//get value
$productCategory = $this->getRequest()->getParam('producttype');
//save value to namespace
$session->productType = $productCategory;
//...
}
now to move this off to a separate method you have to pass the data to the method...
protected function rememberLastProductSearched($productType)
{
//open seesion, start will be called if needed
$session = new Zend_Session_Namespace('products');
$session->productType = $productType;
}
So now if you want to test for presence of a value...
//in any controller
public function anyAction()
{
//open seesion, call the namespace whenever you need to access it
$session = new Zend_Session_Namespace('products');
if (!isset($session->productType)) {
$productCategory = $this->getRequest()->getParam('producttype');
//save value to session
$this->rememberLastProductSearched($productCategory)
} else {
$productCategory = $session->productType;
}
}
That's the idea.
Be mindful of your work flow as it can sometimes be very simple to inadvertently overwrite your session values.

Answer 2

$session = new Zend_Session_Namespace("productSearch");
if ($this->getRequest()->getParam('producttype')) { //isset GET param ?
$session->productType = $this->getRequest()->getParam('producttype');
$searchedProductType = $session->productType;
} else { //take the session saved value
if ($session->productType) {
$searchedProductType = $session->productType;
}
}
//now use $searchedProductType for your query