session_destroy() after certain amount of time in PHP

Question

I am currently saving a session in my form page:

$testingvalue = "SESSION TEST";

$_SESSION[\'testing\'] = $testingvalue;

Answer 1

you need a static start time to expire. $session_life > $inactive will always be greater no matter what.

session_start();

$testingvalue = "SESSION TEST";
$_SESSION['testing'] = $testingvalue;

// 2 hours in seconds
$inactive = 7200;


$_SESSION['expire'] = time() + $inactive; // static expire


if(time() > $_SESSION['expire'])
{  
$_SESSION['testing'] = '';
 session_unset();
 session_destroy(); 
$_SESSION['testing'] = '2 hours expired'; // test message
}

echo $_SESSION['testing'];

or session-set-cookie-params

Answer 2

Something like this should work

<?php
// 2 hours in seconds
$inactive = 7200; 
ini_set('session.gc_maxlifetime', $inactive); // set the session max lifetime to 2 hours

session_start();

if (isset($_SESSION['testing']) && (time() - $_SESSION['testing'] > $inactive)) {
    // last request was more than 2 hours ago
    session_unset();     // unset $_SESSION variable for this page
    session_destroy();   // destroy session data
}
$_SESSION['testing'] = time(); // Update session