PHP- setcookie cannot modify header information

Question

I'm new to PHP, and I tried to research this question but maybe I'm not asking right... I can tell from other posts/instructionals that I can not user header() or setcookie() after printing out HTML...

I commented out the header "redirects" - is there an alternative to this that I can put after HTML? It's the setcookies that are failing at the moment:

what am I not seeing? I keep getting errors but my HTML is after the PHP:

if (!isset($_COOKIE["user"])) {

$sUserIdentity = $_POST["userIdentity"];
//username is not accepted as a get value
$sPassword = $_POST["password"];
$sEmail = $_POST["email"];


$cnn= odbc_connect("Driver={SQL Server};Server=$server;Database=$dbI", $user, $password);
//check to see if email account or username already used
$sql2 = "select id from i_user where email = '" . $sEmail  . "' or username ='" . $sUserIdentity . "'";
//echo $sql2 ."<br>";
$result = odbc_exec($cnn, $sql2);
$id = odbc_result($result,"id");


if ($id == ''){
    $cnnCreate = odbc_connect("Driver={SQL Server};Server=$server;Database=$dbI", $user, $password);
    $sqlCreate  = "insert into i_user (username,email,salt,active) values ";
    $sqlCreate .= "(";
    $sqlCreate .= "'" . $sUserIdentity  . "',";
    $sqlCreate .= "'" . $sEmail  . "',"; 
    $rsCreate = odbc_exec($cnnCreate, $sqlCreate);

    $sql2 = "select * from i_user where email = '" . $sEmail  . "' and username ='" . $sUserIdentity . "'";
    //echo $sql2 ."<br>";
    $result = odbc_exec($cnn, $sql2);

    $expire=time()+60*60*24*30;
    setcookie("uid", odbc_result($result,"id"), $expire);
    setcookie("user", odbc_result($result,"username"), $expire);

    if ($rsCreate){ 
        $sMsg = "congratulations " . $_COOKIE["user"] . " and welcome "; 
    } 
    else { 
        $sMsg = "There was an error with the query"; 
    }  
}else{
    $sMsg =  "User " . $id . " already in DB";
    //header('Location: ../fec/createuser.php?error=id');
}
}
//echo $sqlCreate;

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>User Form</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../js/jquery-1.9.1.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../js/jquery-ui-1.10.2.custom.min.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../css/styles.css" type="text/css">
<style>
</style>
</head>

<body>


</body> 
</html>

if you get errors before header() it has the same effect like printing html before header() — steven, May 30 '13 at 20:31
the only error i get is on the setcookies() - it's the first and only error — tree, May 30 '13 at 20:32
maybe you printed out some whitespaces before setcookies(). Every output is forbidden before modify headers, maybe in other files loaded before — steven, May 30 '13 at 20:33
I think you are right. Although there was no visible space. I had the file saved as UTF-8 encoded - and when I viewed it as Hexidecimal, there was something before the — tree, May 30 '13 at 20:41

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 30 '13 at 20:34

1

Make sure <?php is at the very beginning of the file, with no blank lines before it. And you can't print or echo anything before calling setcookie().

answered May 30 '13 at 20:34

Barmar

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We would need to see what is being done from the start of the script to make a solid suggestion about a fix. – RiggsFolly May 30 '13 at 20:56
1

@RiggsFolly See his last comment above -- I suspect a BOM. – Barmar May 30 '13 at 21:04
Woops, missed that comment from her. Sorry – RiggsFolly May 30 '13 at 21:35

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 30 '13 at 21:39

Why don't you use output buffering?

<?php

    ob_start();

?>
<html>
<body>
...
</body>
</html>
<?php

    ob_end_flush();

?>

This will put any output into a buffer and you can modify header information as long as the buffer isn't flushed. This will also avoid problems in case a PHP warning or error message was sent to output before you write to the header.

PHP- setcookie cannot modify header information

2 Answers2