title: magento - including php file in the root folder
body: <p>I have a product page in magento where I have a drop down menu and a submit button.
  When I choose a value from the drop down menu and click submit, I send the request to a file called other.php in the root of the magento installation.</p>
  
  <p>This is all fine.</p>
  
  <p>On this page I set a session variable $_SESSION['myGroupID'] and I have successfully echoed this out so I know that's ok.</p>
  
  <p>When I go to redirect back to the referring page, the <code>$_SESSION['myGroupID']</code> is not persisting. I have included <code>session_start();</code> on all required pages.</p>
  
  <p>I suspect it's because I'm breaking out of magento's world here, off to a php file that I created in the root and back again to a page in magento's world. </p>
  
  <p>Can someone tell me what I need to do in order to "teach" magento that this other.php file is part of the overall set up, and what I would need to include to allow the session variable to persist across my pages?</p>
  
  <p>I saw this link which looks to be a similar problem, but I'm new to Magento and don't quite understand the information in it. </p>
  
  <p><a href="https://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/8147/adding-magentos-required-structure-to-a-php-file">https://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/8147/adding-magentos-required-structure-to-a-php-file</a></p>