[SOLVED] How Can I Detect if a User's Cookies are Disabled?

[Fluoresce]

Is it possible to do the following?

 

1) Detect if a user's cookies are disabled.

2) Ask the user to enable cookies.

3) Count the number of visitors that go through this process.

[PugJr]

Yes. Make a cookie. Then see if that cookie exists. If not, he has it disabled. If so, he has it enabled. You are welcome. 

[Fluoresce]

Yes. Make a cookie. Then see if that cookie exists. If not, he has it disabled. If so, he has it enabled. You are welcome. 

 

Great!

 

So it can be done.

 

I'm guessing that it has to be done with PHP. Do you know of any scripts that I can refer to?

[PugJr]

It should be pretty simple to do.

 

http://www.tizag.com/phpT/phpcookies.php

 

That should give you all you need. 

[Adam]

I'm guessing that it has to be done with PHP.

 

You don't have to use PHP, almost any web programming/scripting language should have the ability to manipulate cookies, including JavaScript. Of course if they have cookies disabled, I would have thought they'd more like the kind of user to have JS disabled as well.

 

In addition to that tutorial you may want to take a look at the PHP manual for setcookie, for a more thorough explanation.

[Daniel0]

Yes. Make a cookie. Then see if that cookie exists. If not, he has it disabled. If so, he has it enabled. You are welcome. 

 

So how do you distinguish between a new user (thus without a cookie) or a person with cookies disabled?

[Adam]

I think he's thinking of something like...

 

setcookie('cookie_test', 1, 1);

if (isset($_COOKIE['cookie_test']))
{
    // cookies enabled
}
else
{
    // cookies disabled
}

[Daniel0]

That will always go into the else. setcookie() doesn't populate the $_COOKIES super global.

[Adam]

Daym! Yeah seems so. I think the only way you could do it then would be to redirect the user after setting the cookie, and check for it there..

[Fluoresce]

Excellent feedback, guys.

 

Thank you!

 

It seems that the only way to do it is to redirect the user to the same page after setting the cookie. Is that correct? Is it even possible?

 

How do I go about redirecting to the same page? 

[gizmola]

That would create an infinite loop, in the case that cookies are not set, unless you also include a get param that you check.  To redirect is no different than any other type of redirect -- you have the http header location method or a meta refresh.  As for getting the current page, there's the really helpful $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'].

[Maq]

Javascript has a native function for this:

 

http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/prop_nav_cookieenabled.asp