PHP internet cookies Setting and deleting through browser

Cookies are used by web sites to store information about the visitor at the local computer ( User end ) through the browser.

The difference between session and cookies is the cookies are stored at client computer and the sessions are stored at server side.

Sending cookies by setcookie

setcookie('Name','value','Expire duration','path','domain', 'secure','httponly')

Name	Description
Name	Required, Name of the cookies to identify
Value	Optional , Value to be stored against the Name
Expire	Optional , Duration to expire , set relative to current time() in seconds.
path	Optional , Should be available throughout domain or particular directory or subdomain
domain	Optional , Subdomain to which the cookie is available
secure	Optional , if set to true then cookie will be set only when secure connection is available
httponly	Optional , if set to true then cookie will be set accessible only through HTTP protocol

Example 1 : Setting the cookies

We will see how to add the cookies first. You can download the free code at the end of this page for your testing. You can use the demo here also. Here is the code to do that.

$value="Plus2net Tutorials";
setcookie ("Plus2netCookie", $value,time()+3600); 
/* expire in 1 hour */

The above line will set the cookie with the variable value set to a string. This will expire after one hour as the time of expire is set to one hour ( +3600 seconds ) after the current time.

We have used time() to get the present time value ( ( time elapsed between current time and Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) in seconds ) and then added the expire time of the cookies in seconds.

setcookie ("Plus2netCookie", $name,time()+60*60*24*30);
// Expire in 30 days

Two things we have to know here.
1. Cookie set by the page now will be available at next page.
2. Before sending any header to the browser ( before sending any html code ) the cookie has to be set. Otherwise error message we will get.

Reading cookies

To read the cookie we can check the value as a variable or by using the code below.

echo "Welcome " .$HTTP_COOKIE_VARS["Plus2netCookie"];

In PHP 5 and above it is

echo "Welcome " .$_COOKIE["Plus2netCookie"];

Delete Cookies

Same way to delete the cookies we will set the same cookie again with expire time one hour before by using time()-3600 . That will delete the cookie from the computer.

setcookie ("Plus2netCookie", "", time() - 3600);

This will delete the cookie.

Advantage of Cookies

Better user experience : Site can store user preference or choice of options through cookies over a period so the visitor need not have to start from scratch.

NOTE : Sensitive information should not be stored by using Cookies

Browser settings

The user have full control over the cookies it want to store or not and for what level it wants to store. The browser setting for the cookies can be managed by going to

Tools >> Internet Options >> Privacy then advanced button.

Unlike sessions cookies are managed by users through its web browser so we have to carefully select which data to be used through cookies.

Storing PHP array data in cookies

We can create an array and store it as cookie. Read the array data to display and destroy the data.

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PHP creating cookies setting and deleting