title: How can I pass variables in PHP from the same page?....logical thinking puzzle
body: <p>so I've hit a potential problem in my site....it's a post-based system, with the posts being in text files. Uses some Javascript and a lot of PHP.</p>
  
  <p>When you make a submission on the form on the homepage, you are sent to a page where data is posted and processed, but you don't see it because you get redirected back. Then the homepage is changed based on what the post you made says. All that was working fine.</p>
  
  <p>But now I'm trying to add a new feature that modifies the post you made, based on a button you hit which submits a hidden form using javascript, and sends to another process and redirect page you don't see, and it works fine until the block that I realized today. I don't know how to specify that the post being altered is the right one.</p>
  
  <p>I anticipate a good amount of users of this site, so my concern is what if user X makes a post while user Y is making a post, and the post of user X becomes the top post, so user Y's options actually change user X's post.....</p>
  
  <p>I was thinking of adding to the main processing page (the one that happens when you first submit) a COOKIE or something that would make note of the number of the line that post will become, by counting the number of the lines in that file at the time and adding 1 to it. Then checking it against the user's number (each user has a number) to see if it's that user's most recent post....but the problem is I don't know how I would pass that value around to be read in the next page.</p>
  
  <p>Setting a COOKIE is out I think because the page both redirects, AND reads and writes to files. The only output to the page though are currently var_dumps.</p>
  
  <p>POST/GET is out because to my knowledge the user would have to do SOMETHING to submit it, and the user's not even going to see the page.</p>
  
  <p>Writing to a file would be messy if lots of users are trying to get their own data.</p>
  
  <p>I think what I may be looking for is SESSION variables...but I don't know anything about those except that they're used to login to pages, and this site has no login.</p>
  
  <p>To make things more fun, when a user posts the same content within a minute of another user, the first user's post is replaced and it gets a little +1 next to it...which makes it harder to check it against the user's number....</p>
  
  <p>AND in the end I'm trying to use AJAX (which I dont know yet) to make the updates in real-time...now THAT is going to suck. But for now I'm worried about my static little site. </p>
  
  <p>Baby steps.</p>
  
  <p>Any ideas how to go about this??</p>