Sending and Receiving Cookies

This section describes how PHP supports cookies. setcookie() is the function to set a cookie to the HTTP response. $_COOKIE is the array containing cookies received in the next HTTP request.

PHP supports cookies with following elements:

1. setcookie() - A built-in function that defines a cookie to be sent in the HTTP response as a header line. Like other header lines, cookies must be sent before any output from your script (this is a protocol restriction). This requires that you place calls to this function prior to any output, including <html> and <head> tags as well as any whitespace. If output exists prior to calling this function, setcookie() will fail and return FALSE.

The syntax of calling setcookie() is:

bool setcookie(string name, string value, int expire)

For example, setcookie("user", "Herong") will set a cookie named as "user" in the HTTP response.

2. $_COOKIE - A built-in array that stores cookies returned back from the browser in the next HTTP request. Cookie names will be used as array keys. For example, $_COOKIE["user"] returns the cookie value, "Herong", included in the HTTP request.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction and Installation of PHP

 PHP Script File Syntax

 PHP Data Types and Data Literals

 Variables, References, and Constants

 Expressions, Operations and Type Conversions

 Conditional Statements - "if" and "switch"

 Loop Statements - "while", "for", and "do ... while"

 Function Declaration, Arguments, and Return Values

 Arrays - Ordered Maps

 Interface with Operating System

 Introduction of Class and Object

 Integrating PHP with Apache Web Server

 Retrieving Information from HTTP Requests

 Creating and Managing Sessions in PHP Scripts

Sending and Receiving Cookies in PHP Scripts

 What Is a Cookie

Sending and Receiving Cookies

 Sending and Receiving Cookies - Example

 ob_start() - Output Buffering Function

 Persistent Cookies Saved on Hard Disk

 Other Cookie Properties - Domain and Path

 Controlling HTTP Response Header Lines in PHP Scripts

 Managing File Upload

 MySQL Server Connection and Access Functions

 Functions to Manage Directories, Files and Images

 SOAP Extension Function and Calling Web Services

 SOAP Server Functions and Examples

 Localization Overview of Web Applications

 Using Non-ASCII Characters in HTML Documents

 Using Non-ASCII Characters as PHP Script String Literals

 Receiving Non-ASCII Characters from Input Forms

 "mbstring" Extension and Non-ASCII Encoding Management

 Managing Non-ASCII Character Strings with MySQL Servers

 Parsing and Managing HTML Documents

 Configuring and Sending Out Emails

 Image and Picture Processing

 Managing ZIP Archive Files

 Managing PHP Engine and Modules on macOS

 Managing PHP Engine and Modules on CentOS

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB