PHP 8.4.2 Released!

    $_COOKIE

    (PHP 4 >= 4.1.0, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    $_COOKIE — HTTP Cookies

    Description

    An associative array of variables passed to the current script via HTTP Cookies.

    Examples

    Example #1 $_COOKIE example

    <?php
    echo 'Hello ' . htmlspecialchars($_COOKIE["name"]) . '!';
    ?>

    Assuming the "name" cookie has been set earlier

    The above example will output something similar to:

    Hello Hannes!

    Notes

    Note:

    This is a 'superglobal', or automatic global, variable. This simply means that it is available in all scopes throughout a script. There is no need to do global $variable; to access it within functions or methods.

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    User Contributed Notes 4 notes

    up
    79
    kiril (at) atern (dot) us
    8 years ago
    To clarify the previously posted note:

    Dots (.) and spaces ( ) in cookie names are being replaced with underscores (_).
    up
    78
    k dot andris at gmail dot com
    9 years ago
    beware, dots (.) in cookie names are replaces by underscores (_)
    up
    9
    rc at opelgt dot org
    1 year ago
    The values of $_COOKIE in general are not identic with the values in $_SERVER["HTTP_COOKIE"]!

    In phpinfo() $_SERVER["HTTP_COOKIE"] shows the actual value stored in the cookie by the browser in 7bit.
    In $_COOKIE is this value after a 7bit to 8bit conversion.

    When all characters in $_SERVER["HTTP_COOKIE"] are in ASCII = 7bit, $_COOKIE is displayed in phpinfo(). When one single character is not in ASCII, phpinfo() shows no value!

    Although in $_COOKIE is still the 8bit conversion of $_SERVER["HTTP_COOKIE"]!
    The reason: the 8bit conversion alone is not enough to say what characters are meant.
    For that the used character-set is necessary.

    phpinfo() does not know the character-set and better says nothing.

    When using $_COOKIE in a php-generated web page the environment has the info of used character-set and so the meant characters can be displayed.

    Three illustrating examples
    ===========================
    A HTML-form is used to get the content which shall be stored in a cookie named "test".

    Input string in field "test": door
    $_SERVER["HTTP_COOKIE"]: test=door
    $_COOKIE["test"]
    displayed in phpinfo(): door
    displayed in any html page: door

    Input string in field "test" (ISO-8859-1 used in form): Tür
    $_SERVER["HTTP_COOKIE"]: test=T%FCr
    $_COOKIE["test"]
    displayed in phpinfo(): ""
    displayed in a ISO-8859-1-html-page: Tür
    (displayed in a UTF-8-html-page: T�r)

    Input string in field "test" (UTF-8 used in form): Tür
    $_SERVER["HTTP_COOKIE"]: test=T%C3%BCr
    $_COOKIE["test"]
    displayed in phpinfo(): ""
    displayed in a UTF-8-html-page: Tür
    (displayed in a ISO-8859-1-html-page: Tür)
    up
    1
    user at NOSPAM dot example dot com
    2 years ago
    PHP replaces dots (.) with underscores (_). To find all original cookie names (and value) you can use $_SERVER['HTTP_COOKIE'].

    For example to retrieve a cookie set with <?php setcookie('testing.dots', 'value'); ?> you may use:
    <?php
    $cookies     = explode('; ', $_SERVER['HTTP_COOKIE']);
    $allCookies = [];

    foreach(    $cookies as $cookie) {
    $keyAndValue = explode('=', $cookie);
    $allCookies[$keyAndValue[0]] = $keyAndValue[1];
    }

    var_dump($allCookies);
    /*
    array(1) {
    ["testing.dots"]=>
    string(5) "value"
    }
    */

    echo $allCookies['testing.dots'];
    ?>
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