Topics

Context

• HTTP is stateless.
• A website would like to remember you.
• Cookie transactions toggle
  • A website gives your browser a cookie.
  • Your browser sends that cookie back to that same website.

Using Cookies in PHP

• Do the heavy lifting ourselves (server side!) toggle
  • Receiving: parse the HTTP request header:

    Cookie: NAME1=OPAQUE_STRING1; NAME2=OPAQUE_STRING2 ...
    

  • Sending: could write the raw HTTP header line ourselves:

    Set-Cookie: NAME=VALUE; expires=DATE; path=PATH; domain=DOMAIN_NAME; secure
    

• Let PHP do the lifting toggle
  • setcookie(name, value, expire, path, domain, secure)
  • $_COOKIE[] and $_REQUEST[] superglobals
• Clarifications toggle
  • setcookie() must be called before any output is generated
  • expire measured in seconds since the epoch (e.g., time()+60*60*24*30 for 30 days)
  • if expire == 0, cookie expires when browser is closed
  • if name uses "array notation", $_COOKIE[] will process as array