Why can't I use integers as an index in a PHP $_SESSION array?

Question

Eg:

$_SESSION['1'] = 'username'; // works
$_SESSION[1] = 'username'; //doesnt work

I want to store session array index as array index. So that o/p is :

Array(
[1] => 'username'
)

Answer 1

$_SESSION can only be used as an associative array.

You could do something like this though:

$_SESSION['normal_array'] = array();
$_SESSION['normal_array'][0] = 'index 0';
$_SESSION['normal_array'][1] = 'index 1';

Personally, I'd just stick with the associative array.

$_SESSION['username'] = 'someuser';

Or

$_SESSION['username_id'] = 23;