Zend_Session_Namespace not working as expected

After creating a namespace, if I try to add a value to it, the variable has the particular value, but not the session with the namespace. But, if I create some variable, that is a key for an array, and add the value to it, it is saved to the session. To illustrate my point:

public $submitUser;
public function init ()
{
    $this->submitUser = new Zend_Session_Namespace('submitUser');
    Zend_Session::rememberMe(60*60*24*7);
}

public function selectUserAccount ($username)
{        
    $returnArray = array(
        'name' => 'Man', 
        'surname' => 'With a surname',
        'username' => $username
    );
    $this->submitUser->user = $returnArray;
}

Inserts into the session

'submitUser' => 
    array
  开发者_JAVA技巧    'user' => 
        array
          'name' => string 'Man' (length=3)
          'surname' => string 'With a Surname' (length=14)
          'username' => string 'jpeiseni' (length=8)

But

public function selectUserAccount ($username)
{        
    $returnArray = array(
        'name' => 'Man', 
        'surname' => 'With a Surname',
        'username' => $username
    );
    $this->submitUser = $returnArray;
}

Doesn't set the variables in the session

This is a small nuisance, that I can probably live with, but I would like to know if there is a reason not to allow the namaspace to have a value for it self, or am I missing something?

Yes this makes sense, what you're effectively doing is this:

$this->submitUser = new Zend_Session_Namespace('submitUser');
$this->submitUser = $returnArray;

so you create an instance of Zend_Session_Namespace and then you replace it with a completely different variable.

Perhaps something like this would make more sense (depending on what this code is for):

$this->submit = new Zend_Session_Namespace('submit');
$this->submit->user = $returnArray;

try this:

public function selectUserAccount ($username)
{
    $returnArray = array(
        'name' => 'Man',
        'surname' => 'With a Surname',
        'username' => $username
    );
    $this->submitUser->applySet('array_merge', $returnArray);
}