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:
c3.gif


 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 :


c2.gif


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 !!