Cookies?

Vigilant Psyche · April 24, 2008

Can some one please explain the flow of creating a new cookie, setting its value to a php variable, say $value, and then reading that value? Thanks a lot.

DeanWhitehouse · April 24, 2008

what is it for, if its for a login form, use sessions

Vigilant Psyche · April 24, 2008

I did but they don't disappear after a set time, which is what I need to happen...

DeanWhitehouse · April 24, 2008

are you setting the sessions on every page with

session_start();

Vigilant Psyche · April 24, 2008

Yes, I have the sessions working perfectly fine but I would like to use cookies instead due to their time-limit.

GregL83 · April 24, 2008

Your browser may need to refresh after the cookie is disabled. Try closing down the browser and re-opening it.

I do something like this:

<?php
session_start();
setcookie('value', $value, time() + 3600, "/");
echo $_COOKIE['value'];
?>

to delete I use:

<?php
session_start();
setcookie('value', '', time() - 3600, "/");
?>

Vigilant Psyche · April 24, 2008

Okay thanks. Now when I change the value of the cookie after initially setting it do i have to use the function each time or just $_COOKIE['value'] because I heard that the setcookie funtion has to be before htmkl tag.

GregL83 · April 24, 2008

Anytime you want to pull the variable use $_COOKIE['value'].

Make sure that the session is started by session_start() ...

Thats it.

Vigilant Psyche · April 24, 2008

Okay so this?

<?php

session_start();

setcookie("user", "", time()+3600);

?>

<HTML>

<BODY>

//form

$_COOKIE['user']=$_POST['name']; //(from form)

echo $_COOKIE['user'];

</BODY>

</HTML>

GregL83 · April 24, 2008

sorry if I didn't explain it better....

I set the cookie in the body of the code and/or delete it there as well.

<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<?php
# start session
session_start();
# create cookie
setcookie('value', $value, time() + 3600, "/");
# display cookie; after page has been refreshed
echo $_COOKIE["value"];

# deleting cookies
setcookie('value', "", time() - 3600, "/");

?>
</body>
</html>

if anyone notices and error feel free to let us know, I use this method and it works for me...

Vigilant Psyche · April 24, 2008

<html>

<body>

<?php

# start session

session_start();

# create cookie

setcookie('value', $value, time() + 3600, "/");

$_COOKIE['value']=$value; <-----------------------------------------------------is this valid, or do I use the function again?