How cookies work in PHP - Try It Yourself

How cookies work

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple website that remembers a visitor's name using cookies. When the visitor enters their name, the website saves it in a cookie so that next time they visit, the site greets them by name automatically.

🎯 Goal: Create a PHP script that sets a cookie with the visitor's name, reads the cookie on subsequent visits, and displays a greeting message using the stored name.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable to hold the visitor's name

Set a cookie with the visitor's name that expires in 1 hour

Check if the cookie exists and read the visitor's name from it

Display a greeting message using the visitor's name from the cookie

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Cookies are used by websites to remember users and their preferences, making visits more personal and convenient.

💼 Career

Understanding how cookies work is important for web developers to manage user sessions, preferences, and authentication.

1

Create a variable with the visitor's name

Create a variable called $visitorName and set it to the string 'Alice'.

PHP

<?php

// Create a variable called $visitorName and set it to 'Alice'
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use $visitorName = 'Alice'; to create the variable.

2

Set a cookie with the visitor's name

Use the setcookie function to set a cookie named 'user' with the value of $visitorName that expires in 3600 seconds (1 hour).

PHP

<?php

$visitorName = 'Alice';

// Set a cookie named 'user' with value $visitorName that expires in 1 hour
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use setcookie('user', $visitorName, time() + 3600); to set the cookie.

3

Check if the cookie exists and read its value

Use an if statement to check if the cookie named 'user' exists in $_COOKIE. If it exists, create a variable called $nameFromCookie and set it to the cookie's value.

PHP

<?php

$visitorName = 'Alice';

setcookie('user', $visitorName, time() + 3600);

// Check if cookie 'user' exists and assign its value to $nameFromCookie
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use if (isset($_COOKIE['user'])) { $nameFromCookie = $_COOKIE['user']; } to read the cookie.

4

Display a greeting message using the cookie value

Use echo to print the greeting message Hello, followed by the value of $nameFromCookie. If $nameFromCookie is not set, print Hello, guest instead.

PHP

<?php

$visitorName = 'Alice';

setcookie('user', $visitorName, time() + 3600);

if (isset($_COOKIE['user'])) {
    $nameFromCookie = $_COOKIE['user'];
}

// Print greeting message using $nameFromCookie or 'guest'
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use echo "Hello, $nameFromCookie"; if the cookie exists, otherwise echo "Hello, guest";.