laravel/documentation/session/usage.md

Session Usage

• Storing Items
• Retrieving Items
• Removing Items
• Regeneration

Storing Items

Storing items in the session is a breeze. Simply call the put method on the Session class:

Session::put('name', 'Taylor');

The first parameter is the key to the session item. You will use this key to retrieve the item from the session. The second parameter is the value of the item.

Need to store an item in the session that should expire after the next request? Check out the flash method. It provides an easy way to store temporary data like status or error messages:

Session::flash('status', 'Welcome Back!');

Retrieving Items

Retrieving items from the session is no problem. You can use the get method on the Session class to retrieve any item in the session, including flash data. Just pass the key of the item you wish to retrieve:

$name = Session::get('name');

By default, NULL will be returned if the session item does not exist. However, you may pass a default value as a second parameter to the get method:

$name = Session::get('name', 'Fred');

$name = Session::get('name', function() {return 'Fred';});

Now, "Fred" will be returned if the "name" item does not exist in the session.

Laravel even provides a simple way to determine if a session item exists using the has method:

if (Session::has('name'))
{
     $name = Session::get('name');
}

Removing Items

Need to get rid of a session item? No problem. Just mention the name of the item to the forget method on the Session class:

Session::forget('name');

You can even remove all of the items from the session using the flush method:

Session::flush();

Regeneration

Sometimes you may want to "regenerate" the session ID. This simply means that a new, random session ID will be assigned to the session. Here's how to do it:

Session::regenerate();