Zend_Session: determine if Session was initially started or just updated

Question

I've got a problem with Zend_Session. I need to know, if the Session for this user was initially started the first time or if it was just updated in the current request.

I need to know that for statistics. If the session was initialized (meaning the user visits my app for the first time) I want to store the referer of the request in some db-table. This of course I only want to do for the first request within this session.

The manual talks about the methods Zend_Session::isStarted() and Zend_Session::sessionExists(). But it seems that both methods only work for within the current request (meaning it returns true if I use Zend_Session::start() somewhere in my app).

My approach was the following: I tried to override Zend_Session::start() to insert the statistic-data into my db-table.

// Somewhere in my bootstrap:
My_Session::start();

// This is my class (eased up)
class My_Session extends Zend_Session
{
    public static function start($options)
    {
        parent::start($options);

        if(/* Here I need the condition to test, if it was the initial session-starting... */)
        {
            $table = new Zend_Db_Table(array('name' => 'referer'));
            $row = $table->createRow();
            $row->url = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERRER'];
            $row->ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
            // ... some columns ...
            $row->save();
        }
    }
}

Anybody has any idea?

Answer 1

I need to know, if the Session for this user was initially started the first time or if it was just updated in the current request.

Not a problem:

Zend_Session::start();
$my_logger = new Zend_Session_Namespace('my_logger');
if(isset($my_logger->has_already_visited_app) && $my_logger->has_already_visited_app) {
  // this is not the first request
} else {
  // this is the first request, do something here

  // make sure to add the following
  $my_logger->has_already_visited_app = true;
}