[Resolved] To set a cookie or not set a cookie, that is the question

whitebread

Greetings all,

I have a small question with regards to setting cookies. I have found that if I try to set a cookie with a header preceding it the cookie will not set itself.

I have found that if I set a refresh rate of "0" while using a URL relocation the cookie sets itself fine.

Would anyone know why this does this?

Code example that does not work,

if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
	if ($_POST['fromdate'] != 'From Date') {
		if (($_POST['todate']) != "To Date") {
		setcookie('fromdate', $fromdate, time()+5, '/', '', 0);
		setcookie('todate', $todate, time()+5, '/', '', 0);
		header('location: search_results.php');
		}
	}
	}

Code example that does work,

if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
	if ($_POST['fromdate'] != 'mm/dd/yyyy') {
		if (($_POST['todate']) != "mm/dd/yyyy") {
		setcookie('fromdate', $fromdate, time()+15, '/', '', 0);
		setcookie('todate', $todate, time()+15, '/', '', 0);
		header("Refresh: 0; URL=search_results.php");
		}
	}

rebelo

That's bizarre. I honestly haven't any clue why that's happening. The reason I am commenting, though, is to see if perhaps using sessions to accomplish what you want to do would be easier/better anyways.

The code sample is obviously out of context, so there may be a good reason for what you're doing, but I find life much simpler using sessions to cary information through to other pages etc.

session_start(); // do this on every page
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
    if ($_POST['fromdate'] != 'From Date') {
        if (($_POST['todate']) != "To Date") {
            $_SESSION["fromdate"] = $fromdate;
            $_SESSION["todate"] = $todate;
            header('location: search_results.php');
        }
    }
}

I assume those $fromdate and $todate vars are supposed to be $POST["todate"] and $POST["fromdate"], but I just copied it verbatim.

whitebread

Hi and thanks for your comments.

The only reason I use cookies is that sessions are stored on my server, cookies are not. I do use sessions for some pages but when it comes to a MySQL query I perfer cookies so I can have them expire after a few minutes.

I also write code for a large company web site and it's funny because I can get a plan header to work on an XP server but not Windows 2000 Server.

Thanks Again.

rebelo

Perhaps the issue is server side and not a problem with the code at all?

whitebread

That's what I thought to but I've tried it on other IIS windows servers with the same results. I thought it would have been the way I setup PHP but that's why I loaded it on the XP machine.

Oh well it's not like the URL relocate doesn't work.

Thanks for all your help.

rebelo

I'd be interested to see if there's any change on a linux/unix based server. However, it wouldn't do any good to you I'm sure, so I'm not going to bother with the effort of testing.