Advanced PHP Tutorial: PHP Cookies
Cookies are often used to identify users.
What are Cookies?
Cookies are often used to identify users. Cookies are small files that a server leaves on a user's computer. Whenever the same computer requests a page through the browser, it also sends the cookie. With PHP, you can create and retrieve cookie values.
How to create cookies?
setcookie() function is used to set cookies.
Note: The setcookie() function must be placed before the tag.
Syntax
setcookie(name, value, expire, path, domain); Example
In the following example, we will create a cookie named "user" and assign it the value "Alex Porter". We also specify that this cookie expires after one hour:
setcookie("user", "Alex Porter", time()+3600); Note: When sending a cookie, the cookie value will be automatically URL-encoded and automatically decoded when retrieved (to prevent URL encoding, please use setrawcookie() instead). PHP’s $_COOKIE variable is used to retrieve the value of the cookie. In the following example, we retrieve the value of the cookie named "user" and display it on the page: // Print a cookie In the example below, we use the isset() function to confirm whether a cookie has been set:
?>
How to retrieve the value of Cookie?
echo $_COOKIE["user "];
// A way to view all cookies
print_r($_COOKIE);
?>
if (isset($_COOKIE["user"]))
echo "Welcome " . $_COOKIE["user"] . "!
";
else
echo "Welcome guest!
";
?>