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I have this page that sets a cookie and echos out a string if you check a checkbox. The string prints correctly, but the cookie never gets set and I have no idea why.
<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>" method="post">
<label for="checkbox">Option 1:</label>
<input type="checkbox" name="checkbox" id="checkbox"><br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
<?php
if (isset($_POST['checkbox'])) {
setcookie("cookie", "on", time()+3600*24);
echo "You checked the checkbox and a cookie was set with a value of:<br>";
}
else {
setcookie("cookie", "off", time()+3600*24);
echo "You didn't check the checkbox and a cookie was set with a value of:<br>";
}
echo $_COOKIE['cookie'];
?>
Does anyone know why the above code does not work?
647
The setcookie() function defines a cookie to be sent along with the rest of the HTTP headers. 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.
PHP provided setcookie() function to set a cookie. This function requires upto six arguments and should be called before <html> tag.
You can do this by calling ob_start() and ob_end_flush() in your script, or setting the output_buffering configuration directive on in your php. ini or server configuration files. Common Pitfalls: Cookies will not become visible until the next loading of a page that the cookie should be visible for.
Set HttpOnly cookie in PHPini_set("session. cookie_httponly", True); This is the most common way to set cookies in PHP, empty variables will hold their default value.
PHP superglobals are populated at script start-up time, and then are NOT modified or touched by PHP again for the life of the script. That means $_COOKIE represents the cookies that were sent to the server in the http request that fired up the script. It will NOT show any cookies you've added/changed/deleted during the life of the script. Those changes will only show up on the NEXT request.
The only exception to this is $_SESSION, which is populated when you call session_start().
If you need those values to be in $_COOKIE immediately, you'll have to add them manually, e.g.
setcookie('cookie', $value, ....);
$_COOKIE['cookie'] = $value;
According to the PHP Manual at http://php.net/manual/en/function.setcookie.php:
If output exists prior to calling this function, setcookie() will fail and return FALSE. If setcookie() successfully runs, it will return TRUE. This does not indicate whether the user accepted the cookie.
In other words, the function setcookie() is not working because it is inside the page. If you want it to work, you will need to put that function before the page, specifically before any headers.
Do this:
<?php
if ( isset($_POST['checkbox']) ) {
setcookie("cookie", "on", time()+3600*24);
echo "You checked the checkbox and a cookie was set with a value of:<br>";
} else {
setcookie("cookie", "off", time()+3600*24);
echo "You didn't check the checkbox and a cookie was set with a value of:<br>";
}
echo $_COOKIE['cookie'];
?>
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>...</head>
<body>
<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>" method="post">
<label for="checkbox">Option 1:</label>
<input type="checkbox" name="checkbox" id="checkbox"><br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>
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