PHP cookies, add more values to attribute

Question

I'm trying to implement the following feature. When someone reads an article, I want to add a cookie that stores the article id so I can use this in another page. My issue is that if the user sees another article, then the cookie is rewritten so the old id is deleted. I want to keep in the cookie all the ids of the seen articles.

Setting the cookie

<?php
// Check if cookie exists
if( isset($_COOKIE["read"]) ) {
    $array = unserialize($_COOKIE['read']);

    // Iterate array
    found = False;
    foreach ($array as $i) {
        // Check if doc id already in cookie
        if ($array[$i] == $id) {
            found = True;
        }   
    }
    if (!found) {
        array_push($array, $id);
        setcookie("read", serialize($array), time()+3600);
    }
}

// If cookie does NOT exists
else {
    $array = array();
    array_push($array, $id);
    setcookie("read", serialize($array), time()+3600);
}
?>

Reading the cookie to show that the article is read

<?php

while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)){
    $id = $row['id'];

    if( isset($_COOKIE["read"]) ) {
        $array = unserialize($_COOKIE['read']);
            // Iterate array
            for ($i = 0; $i < count($array); ++$i) {
                if ($array[$i] == $id) {
                    $read = True;
                }
                else {
                    $read = False;
                }
            }
    }
    else {
        $read = False;
    }

    print "<p>Document ".$row['id']." Title: <b>".$row['title']."</b>";
    if ($read == True) {
        print("*");
    }
    print " <a href=\"detail.php?id=".$row['id']."\">More Info</a></p>";
}

?>

This code works but as said overwrites the previous article id. I think I got to use an array. But I don't know how to keep adding values.

UPDATE: I tried to serialize but still no results. I'm trying to see if the id is inside the unserialized array.

check your setcookie call for failure i.e. `if(!setcookie(...)) { log error }` — FuzzyTree, May 18 '14 at 00:05
I can see that it sets the cookie. The issue is when I'm trying to see if the id exists in the array i'm getting from the cookie. — manosim, May 18 '14 at 00:07

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

1

Do you want Arrays in cookies PHP

Serialize data:

setcookie('cookie', serialize($idS));

Then unserialize data:

$idS= unserialize($_COOKIE['cookie']);

edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

Community

1
1

answered May 17 '14 at 23:19

Abdullah

627
9
27

I tried to use serialize but I still can't make it work. I think I can't search in the array. Can you have a look at the updated code? Thanks! – manosim May 17 '14 at 23:56

Hektor · Answer 2 · 2014-05-18T00:45:23.287

0

Try adding a datetime() string to the start of the cookie's name. That way old ones won't get overwritten. Something like:

$date_snippet = date('Y-m-d H:i:s'); 
setcookie("{$date_snippet}read", serialize($array), time()+3600);

edited May 18 '14 at 00:45

answered May 18 '14 at 00:38

Hektor

1,845
15
19

PHP cookies, add more values to attribute

2 Answers2