PHP Quick Scripting Reference

CHAPTER 24

Cookies

A cookie is a small file kept on the client’s computer that can be used to store data relating to that user.

Creating cookies

To create a cookie the setcookie function is used. This function must be called before any output is sent to the browser. It has three mandatory parameters that contain the name, value and expiration date of the cookie.

setcookie("lastvisit", date("H:i:s"), time() + 60*60);

The value is here set with the date function, which returns a string formatted according to the specified format string. The expiration date is measured in seconds and is usually set relative to the current time in seconds retrieved ...