[RESOLVED] setcookie() problem

[middleman666]

hey people,

Today I've been playing around with cookies for the first time, all was going well, but I've discovered a bug and I'm not sure what's causing it :S

I have a file called index.php which looks like this:

<?php 
session_start();

//Remember User?
if ($_POST['rememberuser'] == 'yes') {
  setcookie("theUser", $_POST['username']);
}
else if ($_POST['rememberuser'] == 'no'){
  setcookie("theUser", "", mktime(12,0,0,1, 1, 1990));
}

include('Login.php');
?>

As you can see, the index holds the login which in short (meaning I'm only showing the parts that deal with the cookie) looks like this:

//Is cookie set?
if (isset($_COOKIE['theUser'])) {
  $username = $_COOKIE['theUser'];
  $rememberuser = 'checked="checked"';
}
else {
  $username = $_POST['username'];
  $forgetuser = 'checked="checked"';
}

if (!isset($_SESSION['valid_user'])) {
  echo '
<form method="post" action="index.php?menu=login">
Username: <input name="username" type="text" size="30" value="'.$username.'"/><br />

Password: <input name="password" type="password" size="30" /><br />

<input name="rememberuser" type="radio" value="yes" '.$rememberuser.' /> Remember me<br />
<input name="rememberuser" type="radio" value="no" '.$forgetuser.' /> Always ask for username and password<br />

  <input type="submit" value="Sign In" class="signin" />

</form>';
}

So I type username and password, click the 'remember me' radio button and then login and then I log out, return to the index.php and my username is in the username field and the 'remember me' is checked.

So I thought that was it... but apparently not. The problem is, when I close the browser and open a new one and go to index.php, the username field is not pre-filled and the 'Always ask for username and password' radio field is checked.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks.

[bradgrafelman]

In the first code snippet, if the user checks the "Remember Me" box, you don't specify an expiration date on the cookie. Without an expiration date, the cookie will act as a "session cookie", meaning it will expire when the "session" is ended (e.g. you close the browser window).

Try generating an expiration date in the future so that the cookie persists until then.

EDIT: Also, if they DON'T check that box, you use mktime() to generate a date back in 1990. I believe what you want in this situation is a "session" type cookie, as described above. As such, you should simply remove the mktime() statement and not specify an expiration date for the cookie.

[middleman666]

cheers for the reply, I added a expiration date and now it works perfectly.

As for the mktime() I used - I only used this because a tutorial said it was the only way to delete a cookie :S but I guess they were wrong as your way seems to work better 🙂

Thanks for all the help!

[bradgrafelman]

middleman666 wrote:

I only used this because a tutorial said it was the only way to delete a cookie :S but I guess they were wrong as your way seems to work better

Well yes, that's how you delete a cookie - set it to a date in the past.

But in this situation, you're not trying to delete a cookie at all, right? You're simply trying to create a cookie that lasts until the browser window is closed.

[middleman666]

What I wanted is for a cookie to be set if a user wants to be remembered and after they have closed the browser and then return to the site (within 2 months), their username will be pre-typed for them.

That's what I have at the moment and it works fine.