Cookies with extensions - php

Question

I've seen cookies set by web pages with the "." character in them. I'm trying to maximize the dynamic use of a $_GET['url'] to set my cookies, and then include it in a next page as a conditional where it checks to make sure the cookie was set before it allows users to perform an action. Basically I'm using cookies and IP addresses in an anonymous voting action to make sure anyone who votes only gets one per day. IPs are reset through a cron job once a day, and the cookies are set to expire after 17 hours. I have no issues setting a cookie named with the .php extension, however after many hours of trial and error, I can't get it to accept it in an if(isset). No matter what I try, it will not recognize that the cookie is set. Without the extension everything works fine. I've tried a dozen configurations, but here's basically what I have trying to debug.
<?php
$cookie = "test.php";
setcookie("$cookie", "workdamnyou");
if (isset($_COOKIE[$cookie])) {
echo "is set";
}
else {
echo "not set";
}
?>
I've tried isset($_COOKIE["$cookie"]) and isset($COOKIE['$cookie']) as well. That said, I really wish you could run PHP without uploading it each time to your server.. --

Answer 1

setcookie doesn't change $_COOKIE immediately. It sets the headers to change the cookie in the browser, so the script won't see the test value until you refresh the page.
You CAN run PHP without uploading to a server; the easiest option is to install a xAMP stack (LAMP/MAMP/WAMP depending on if you're developing on Linux/Mac/Windows).

Answer 2

Well, I found the solution I guess... PHP doesn't like dots in variable names (http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.basics.php). Now, since Register Globals could be on, it might be possible that a $_COOKIE["name.ext"] could turn into a $name.ext which would be invalid. Thus, "Dots and spaces in variable names are converted to underscores. For example becomes $_REQUEST["a_b"]." (http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.external.php). Does a check for isset("name_php") work?

Answer 3

You cannot set and access a cookie in the same instance! You have to do a redirect, refresh or something, but you cannot both set and access at the same time. Also make sure your other parameters are set like hostname, expiry time. . e.t.c
Eg.
setcookie("TestCookie", $value, time()+3600, "/", "/", 1);
For debugging, just do a var_dump($_COOKIE)

Answer 4

Note that cookies only become available on the next pageload (when they have traversed from server to client and back).
Try setting the cookie directly with $_COOKIES["test.php"] = "test"; and see what happens with
var_dump($_COOKIE);
Also don't use the quotes around the $cookie variable. Thus make it
setcookie($cookie, "work");
instead of
setcookie("$cookie", "work");
Last, you can run PHP locally with your own server. The easiest way on Windows is the WAMPP stack. I find this one very easy to install and run: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
Good luck!

Answer 5

Why would you have a .php extension in the cookie name? It should be:
$cookie = 'test';
See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2109.txt point 4.1:
The two state management headers, Set-Cookie and Cookie, have common
syntactic properties involving attribute-value pairs. The
following grammar uses the notation, and tokens DIGIT (decimal
digits) and token (informally, a sequence of non-special, non-white
space characters) from the HTTP/1.1 specification [RFC 2068] to
describe their syntax.
av-pairs = av-pair *(";" av-pair)
av-pair = attr ["=" value] ; optional value
attr = token
value = word
word = token | quoted-string
Attributes (names) (attr) are case-insensitive. White space is
permitted between tokens. Note that while the above syntax
description shows value as optional, most attrs require them.
NOTE: The syntax above allows whitespace between the attribute and
the = sign.