Session Laravel Package

Updating from v1 to v2

The following changes were made to the Session package between v1 and v2.

Minimum supported PHP version raised

All Framework packages now require PHP 7.2 or newer.

Joomla\Session\Storage class chain removed

The Storage class chain as it existed in v1 has been removed and in v2 is replaced with a StorageInterface and HandlerInterface (an extension of PHP's SessionHandlerInterface) set of classes to separate architectural concerns and improve use of the package.

Joomla\Session\Session - Underscore prefixed methods removed

In v1, there are several protected methods named with a leading underscore. These are renamed without the underscore to comply with the Joomla! Coding Standard.

Joomla\Session\SessionInterface added

A new interface, Joomla\Session\SessionInterface has been added to represent the primary session API.

Joomla\Session\HandlerInterface added

A new interface, Joomla\Session\HandlerInterface, has been added as an extension of PHP's native SessionHandlerInterface. Classes implementing this interface are largely what the Joomla\Session\Storage class chain in v1 was handling.

Joomla\Session\StorageInterface added

A new interface, Joomla\Session\StorageInterface, has been added to represent a class acting as a session store. Abstracting this logic to a new interface improves the internal architecture of the package and enables better testing of the API. There are two default implementations:

1. Joomla\Session\Storage\NativeStorage, which stores data to PHP's $_SESSION superglobal.
2. Joomla\Session\Storage\RuntimeStorage which stores data in PHP's memory. This is useful for when running unit tests or command-line applications.

Joomla\Session\Session::getInstance() removed

The base Joomla\Session\Session class no longer supports singleton object storage. The Session object should be stored in your application's DI container or the Joomla\Application\AbstractWebApplication object.

Session::initialise() removed

The initialise method has been removed. The base Session class now requires a Joomla\Input\Input object as part of the constructor and the Joomla\Event\DispatcherInterface object should be injected via the constructor or the setDispatcher method.

Namespaced session variables dropped

Support for namespaced session variables has been removed from the Session API. Previously, data was stored to the $_SESSION global in a top level container, such as $_SESSION[$namespace]. In v2, data is stored directly to the global.

Event dispatching modified

In v1, when the onAfterSessionStart method was dispatched, a generic Joomla\Event\Event object was passed with no parameters. In v2, a Joomla\Session\SessionEvent object has been added and is dispatched with the onAfterSessionStart and new onAfterSessionRestart events. The SessionEvent object is dispatched with the current Joomla\Session\SessionInterface instance attached so its API is accessible within the events.

Session Validation Abstracted

In order to allow the session package to be more easily integrated with other providers we have abstracted the session validators. A new interface, Joomla\Session\ValidatorInterface has been added to make it easier to add custom session validators as well as removing the dependency of the joomla/input package from the session package. This makes it easier when integrating the session package with PSR-7 compliant applications.