Basic user class

[eluser]merik[/eluser]
I want some basic user management in my project. I can't use CI's Session class, because it stores the user data either in a cookie or a database. I want the session data to be stored in the memory instead; right now, I am using $_SESSION which works but I have to keep track of managing numerous session variables.

I was thinking of creating a user management library, which stores all user session information in ONE serialized session variable, and has methods that you can use to see if the user is logged in or not, if they have permissions to do a certain thing, etc etc. Then I thought someone might have already built it, so I should ask around if there are any good user management libraries out there, or any advice on what I should consider in making one.