Cookies in PHP
Hi guys, In this article
we are going learn how to deal with cookies; first of all we need to know "what
is the meaning of cookies" ?
A cookie is object used to identify
the user by his/her computer.
Cookies are small strings of data created by a Web server but stored on the
client. In addition to having names and values, cookies have an expiration time.
Cookies are often used to track user information.
'Or'
A cookie is often used to identify a user. A cookie is a small file that the
server embeds on the user's computer. Each time the same computer requests a
page with a browser, it will send the cookie too.
For this purpose you must install a XAMPP server.
Creating Your First PHP Cookie
For creating the very first cookies with PHP, we used the setcookie()
function. This is a built in function in php.
Syntax
setcookies(name,value,expiration)
Now we will understand the meaning of these arguments, the explanation of name,
value and expiration are given below:
- name: The name of your cookie. You will use this name to later retrieve your cookie, so don't forget it.
- value: The value that is stored in your cookie. Common values are username(string) and last visit(date).
- expiration: The date when the cookie will expire and be deleted. If you do not set this expiration date, then it will be treated as a session cookie and be removed when the browser is restarted.
This is the PHP script to set the cookies
for the particular user :
<html>
<head><title>PHP
cookies info</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="cyan">
<center>
<h3>
Setting up cookies</h3><hr>
<p>
setcookie('lastVisit', date("G:i - m/d/y"), $oneMonth) </p><br>
<p>with
in php scripting<hr>
//Calculate 30 days in the future<br>
//seconds * minutes * hours * days + current time <br>
$oneMonth = 60 * 60 * 24 * 30 + time(); <br>
setcookie('lastVisit', date("G:i - m/d/y"), $oneMonth);<hr>
</p>
<p> Cookies enabled............</p>
<?php
$oneMonth = 60 * 60 * 24 * 30 + time();
setcookie('lastVisit',
date("G:i
- m/d/y"),
$oneMonth);
?>
</center>
</body>
</html>
Save it as abc.php.
Output of above php scripting
Type
http://localhost/yourfoldername/function.php at your browser, here your
output look like:
PHP script to retrieve the information
<html>
<head>
<title>PHP
cookies info</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="orange">
<center>
<h3>
COOKIES INFORMATION </h3><hr>
<?php
if(isset($_COOKIE['lastVisit']))
$visit = $_COOKIE['lastVisit'];
else
echo " you got
stale cookies!";
echo "Welcome
back! <br> You last visited on ".
$visit;
?>
</center>
</body>
</html>
Save it as ref.php.
Output
Type
http://localhost/yourfoldername/function.php at your browser, here your
output look like :
Destroying the cookies
To destroy the cookie, simply use
setcookie again, only set the expiration date to be in the past. Here is an
example:
<?php
$past = time() - 60;
//this makes the time 60 seconds ago
setcookie(lastVisit, date("G:i
- m/d/y"),
$past);
?>
Remember: Cookies need to be set
in the header. This means they must be sent before any HTML is set to the page,
or they will not work. Thanks !!