Setting and reading cookies in PHP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Setting and Reading Cookies in PHP

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple website that remembers a visitor's favorite color using cookies. When the visitor selects a color, the website saves it in a cookie. When the visitor returns, the website reads the cookie and shows the favorite color.

🎯 Goal: Create a PHP script that sets a cookie named favorite_color with a specific value, then reads and displays the cookie value if it exists.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a cookie named favorite_color with the value blue

Set the cookie to expire in 1 hour

Check if the cookie favorite_color exists

Display the message Your favorite color is: blue if the cookie exists

Display No favorite color set if the cookie does not exist

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Cookies are used on websites to remember user preferences, login status, and other information to improve user experience.

💼 Career

Web developers often need to set and read cookies to manage sessions, personalize content, and track user behavior.

1

Create a cookie named favorite_color

Write a line of PHP code to set a cookie named favorite_color with the value blue that expires in 1 hour using the setcookie function.

PHP

<?php
// Set a cookie named favorite_color with value blue that expires in 1 hour
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use setcookie("favorite_color", "blue", time() + 3600); to set the cookie.

2

Check if the cookie favorite_color exists

Add an if statement to check if the cookie favorite_color exists in the $_COOKIE superglobal array.

PHP

<?php
setcookie("favorite_color", "blue", time() + 3600);

// Check if the cookie favorite_color exists
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use isset($_COOKIE["favorite_color"]) to check if the cookie is set.

3

Display the favorite color if the cookie exists

Inside the if block, write a print statement to display Your favorite color is: followed by the cookie value $_COOKIE["favorite_color"]. Add an else block that prints No favorite color set.

PHP

<?php
setcookie("favorite_color", "blue", time() + 3600);

if (isset($_COOKIE["favorite_color"])) {
    // Print favorite color
    // Your code here
} else {
    // Print no favorite color message
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use print("Your favorite color is: " . $_COOKIE["favorite_color"]) inside the if and print("No favorite color set") inside the else.

4

Run the script and see the output

Run the complete PHP script and observe the output. It should print Your favorite color is: blue if the cookie is set, or No favorite color set if not.

PHP

<?php
setcookie("favorite_color", "blue", time() + 3600);

if (isset($_COOKIE["favorite_color"])) {
    print("Your favorite color is: " . $_COOKIE["favorite_color"]);
} else {
    print("No favorite color set");
}

// Run the script and check output
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Run the script in a browser or PHP server to see the cookie message.