Session variables in Joomla

Something that seems to be poorly documented is how to get and set session variables in Joomla. I distinctively recall hunting high and low for some vital guidance on this when Joomla 1.5 first came out (all those moons ago!) and having no luck. Hopefully this article will help someone, at some point, with something.

Joomla stores all session data in the database. It also has a rather useful session object that can be used to manipulate the data.

HOW TO GET A SESSION VARIABLE:

//get the session object
$session =& JFactory::getSession();
//get a session variable
$myvar = $session->get('nameofsessionvariablehere');

HOW TO SET A SESSION VARIABLE:

//get the session object
$session =& JFactory::getSession();

//set a session variable
$myvar = $session->set('nameofsessionvariablehere', 'valuehere');

Simple, right?
Now you will understand my frustration years ago when I embarked on a futile quest hunting through wiki after forum after website after Joomla core code just to determine 4 simple lines of code!!!

Enjoy.