Array in a cookie

[heavyEddie]

I'm trying to work with cookies for the first time.  It seems like it should be simple enough, but alas, I'm having some problems.

[code] for($i = 0; $i < count($_POST['pid']); $i++)
{
$cookie_name = 'cart_item[' . $_POST['pid'][$i] . ']';
setcookie($cookie_name, $_POST['qty'][$i], 0, '/');
}
[/code]

I'm trying use cookies to store an array.  The code seems to work as long as I'm setting all the cookies on the page at one time.  For instance...
[list]
[*]If I set a cookie called cart_item[22] = 2 it works fine.
[*]If I set cookies called cart_item[22] =2  and another called cart_item[33] = 3 they are both stored fine.
[*]However, if  cart_item[22] is already set and the script is run to set cart_item[33]... it appears cart_item[22] is overwritten with cart_item[33].
[/list]

[trq]

You might want to look into using [url=http://php.net/serialize]serialize[/url] / [url=http://php.net/unserialize]unserialize[/url].

[printf]

You can store it in a single value...

// set it

[code]$items = array ();

for ( $i = 0; $i < sizeof ( $_POST['pid'] ); $i++ )
{
$items[$_POST['pid'][$i]] = $_POST['qty'][$i];
}

if ( ! empty ( $items ) )
{
setcookie ( 'store_cart' urlencode ( serialize ( $items ) ), 0, '/', '.domain.com' );
}[/code]

// extract it...

[code]$cart = array ();

if ( isset ( $_COOKIE['store_cart'] ) )
{
$cart = unserialize ( urldecode ( $_COOKIE['store_cart'] ) );
}[/code]

[heavyEddie]

Thanks guys... I will give it a run for it's money tomorrow.

[heavyEddie]

[url=http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.setcookie.php]This page[/url] on php.net states that using searilize with cookies is unsecure.  Why would this be?

[Zane]

because cookies are stored on your computer
and if you're able to use serialize and unserialize to read it
so can anyone else...just by opening the cookie

or at least that's my idea of it.
it could be more than that

[heavyEddie]

In my case this was a non issue anyway since It isn't anything sensitive in nature.  I won't be putting in SSN in a cookie that is for sure :)