Cookie Help

[daebat]

I'm working on a five star voting system for a website and I have very limited knowledge of cookies and javascript for that matter. I'm attempting to limit users to only one vote per instance so I'm guessing I'll need some sort of count and a cookie tracking system that could delete after a couple days. I'm not necessarily worried about people clearing cache as the votes aren't incredibly important but I definitely don't want the ability to keep voting via click. Here is what I've accomplished so far:

 

<script>
$(document).ready(function() {

$('.rate_widget').each(function(i) {
var widget = this;
var out_data = {
widget_id : $(widget).attr('id'),
fetch: 1
};
$.post(
'ratings.php',
out_data,
function(INFO) {
$(widget).data( 'fsr', INFO );
set_votes(widget);
},
'json'
);
});

$('.ratings_stars').hover(
function() {
$(this).prevAll().andSelf().addClass('ratings_over');
$(this).nextAll().removeClass('ratings_vote');
},
function() {
$(this).prevAll().andSelf().removeClass('ratings_over');
// can't use 'this' because it wont contain the updated data
set_votes($(this).parent());
}
);

$('.ratings_stars').bind('click', function() {
var star = this;
var widget = $(this).parent();

var clicked_data = {
clicked_on : $(star).attr('class'),
widget_id : $(star).parent().attr('id')
};
$.post(
'ratings.php',
clicked_data,
function(INFO) {
widget.data( 'fsr', INFO );
set_votes(widget);
},
'json'
);
});

});
function set_votes(widget) {
var avg = $(widget).data('fsr').whole_avg;
var votes = $(widget).data('fsr').number_votes;
var exact = $(widget).data('fsr').dec_avg;

window.console && console.log('and now in set_votes, it thinks the fsr is ' + $(widget).data('fsr').number_votes);

$(widget).find('.star_' + avg).prevAll().andSelf().addClass('ratings_vote');
$(widget).find('.star_' + avg).nextAll().removeClass('ratings_vote');
$(widget).find('.total_votes').text( votes + ' votes recorded (' + exact + ' rating)' );
}
</script>

[codefossa]

Make the stars a form with 5 links (the stars). Post this to a PHP page which will verify the limit and whatnot. When someone votes, add it to their $_SESSION via PHP. In the HTML, make sure you don't allow voting if it's in the session that they voted for that one already.

 

This will allow them to try and vote again when they come back to it, but you could block that by joining it with the query you use to get the items they're voting on, then you could see if they voted for it and block the ones they did. If you don't already use a query for all of that, it would be an extra query unless you can put it on to another one. In that case, I would stick to the session and just disallow it after they try to vote twice.

[daebat]

Make the stars a form with 5 links (the stars). Post this to a PHP page which will verify the limit and whatnot. When someone votes, add it to their $_SESSION via PHP. In the HTML, make sure you don't allow voting if it's in the session that they voted for that one already.

 

This will allow them to try and vote again when they come back to it, but you could block that by joining it with the query you use to get the items they're voting on, then you could see if they voted for it and block the ones they did. If you don't already use a query for all of that, it would be an extra query unless you can put it on to another one. In that case, I would stick to the session and just disallow it after they try to vote twice.

 

Doesn't session expire really quickly though?

[codefossa]

The session expires when you tell it to. They're kept like cookies, but the actual data is server-sided.

[Christian F.]

Except the session cookie is deleted whenever the client closes their browser, which in turn means that said session is no longer associated with that user.

I'd advice you to use setcookie () instead, it'll last until the client manually cleans the cookies or your code specifically deletes it.