Reading cookies without writing

rayearth

I know that the basic idea to read cookies needs you to use setcookie($name, $value), but is there a way to read a cookie without giving it a new value? I tried using setcookie($name,""), but after using header() to reload the page, isset($_cookie($name)) returns false... Can anyone give me a hand?

Thanks in advance.

rupertbj

setcookie sets the cookie - not reads it.
to display the information stored in a cookie you simply print the $ value and whatever information has been associated with that value from the cookie is displayed.

If you want to go through your cookies and see what information is there - that's another question and i can't help!

rayearth

Ok... Then what would be the syntax to set a cookie to read without changing the value it already has stored in it? Would be it setcookie($name, "") then on the next page, use $_cookie($name) to read the value, do some processing and write it back in using setcookie($name, $processedValue)?

gecko498

You only need to set the cookie if it doesn't already exist.

Examples here of reading cookie values:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.setcookie.php

rupertbj

Rayearth - you're just so wrong!!! YOU DO NOT READ COOKIES USING SETCOOKIE!!!!! OK?

rayearth

Sorry, I'm pretty new to using cookies, I've only used them once a very long time ago in Javascript.

So what do you use to read cookies with? Does $_cookie have a value so long as a cookie from that host/path exists on the client computer?

diego25

So what do you use to read cookies with? Does $_cookie have a value so long as a cookie from that host/path exists on the client computer?

Yes, but it's $COOKIE, not $cookie. To read a cookie you use $_COOKIE['name'], where 'name' is the name of your cookie. And you use setcookie() to set the cookie.

Diego