Storing sessions in a database

The following code shows a simplistic example for storing sessions in a database:

<?php

session_set_save_handler('_open',
                         '_close',
                         '_read',
                         '_write',
                         '_destroy',
                         '_clean');

function _open()
{
  global $_sess_db;

  $db_user = $_SERVER['DB_USER'];
  $db_pass = $_SERVER['DB_PASS'];
  $db_host = 'localhost';
    
  if ($_sess_db = mysql_connect($db_host, $db_user, $db_pass))
  {
    return mysql_select_db('sessions', $_sess_db);
  }
    
  return FALSE;
}

function _close()
{
  global $_sess_db;
    
  return mysql_close($_sess_db);
}

function _read($id)
{
  global $_sess_db;

  $id = mysql_real_escape_string($id);

  $sql = "SELECT data
          FROM   sessions
          WHERE  id = '$id'";

  if ($result = mysql_query($sql, $_sess_db))
  {
    if (mysql_num_rows($result))
    {
      $record = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);

      return $record['data'];
    }
  }

  return '';
}

function _write($id, $data)
{  
  global $_sess_db;

  $access = time();

  $id = mysql_real_escape_string($id);
  $access = mysql_real_escape_string($access);
  $data = mysql_real_escape_string($data);

  $sql = "REPLACE
          INTO    sessions
          VALUES  ('$id', '$access', '$data')";

  return mysql_query($sql, $_sess_db);
}

function _destroy($id)
{
  global $_sess_db;
    
  $id = mysql_real_escape_string($id);

  $sql = "DELETE
          FROM   sessions
          WHERE id = '$id'";

  return mysql_query($sql, $_sess_db);
}

function _clean($max)
{
  global $_sess_db;
    
  $old = time() - $max;
  $old = mysql_real_escape_string($old);

  $sql = "DELETE
          FROM   sessions
          WHERE  access < '$old'";

  return mysql_query($sql, $_sess_db);
}

?>

This requires an existing table named sessions, whose format is as follows:

mysql> DESCRIBE sessions;
+--------+------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field  | Type             | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------+------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| id     | varchar(32)      |      | PRI |         |       |
| access | int(10) unsigned | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| data   | text             | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+--------+------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

This database can be created in MySQL with the following syntax:

CREATE TABLE sessions
(
    id varchar(32) NOT NULL,
    access int(10) unsigned,
    data text,
    PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

Storing your sessions in a database places the trust in the security of your database. Recall the lessons learned when we spoke about databases and SQL, because they are applicable here.