fCookie

The fCookie class helps to make PHPs cookie API more consistent, while adding the ability to set default parameters and create httponly cookies in older versions of PHP 5.

Setting Values

The static method set() is a wrapper around the function setcookie(), with the addition of optional default parameters and backwards compatibility for creating httponly cookies in PHP 5.1 and earlier. In addition, the expires parameter has been extended to allow any valid strtotime() string or a timestamp. Below are some examples of using set():

// Set a cookie for the current path
fCookie::set('my_cookie', 'my_value');

// Set a cookie to expire in 1 week
fCookie::set('my_cookie', 'my_value', '+1 week');

// Set a cookie for the whole site
fCookie::set('my_cookie', 'my_value', '+1 week', '/');

// Set a cookie for the whole site that expires when the browser is closed
fCookie::set('my_cookie', 'my_value', 0, '/');

// Set a cookie for all subdomains of example.com
fCookie::set('my_cookie', 'my_value', '+1 week', '/', '.example.com');

// Ensure that the cookie is only set over a secure connection (https://)
fCookie::set('my_cookie', 'my_value', '+1 week', '/', '.example.com', TRUE);

// Set the cookie to only be accessible to HTTP (not javascript)
fCookie::set('my_cookie', 'my_value', '+1 week', '/', '.example.com', TRUE, TRUE);

Please note that set() follows the same functionality as setcookie() when it comes to deleting cookies and storing boolean values. Any value that is set to a cookie that is equal to FALSE will cause the cookie to be deleted. This means storing boolean values in a cookie is not recommended since a FALSE value will cause the cookie to be erased - instead use '0' and '1'. Also, setting the expiration date to a time in the past will cause the cookie to be deleted.

Getting Values

The static method get() replaces direct access to the $_COOKIE superglobal and adds the ability to specify default values if no cookie is found:

// Get the value 'default_value' if no cookie of that name exists
$value = fCookie::get('my_cookie', 'default_value');

get() will also remove any slashes added by the ini setting magic_quotes_gpc being enabled.

Default Parameters

The fCookie class also allows defining default parameters to use for set(). Since most sites will often use the same $path, $domain, $secure and $httponly parameters for cookies, setting default eliminates unnecessary duplication throughout the code. If a parameter is passed as NULL to set() and a default is defined, the default will be used. Here are the methods to set default parameters: