How to Check if the Cookie is Set in PHP?

We can use the PHP built-in function isset() in conjunction with an if statement to check whether a cookie is set or not. Let’s try to understand with the help of an example.

Example 01:

Look at below example in which we are checking whether the cookie is set or not.

// check if a cookie named "user_name" is set
if(isset($_COOKIE["user_name"])) {
   echo "The user_name is set!";
}else{
   echo "The user_name is not set.";
}
// output: The user_name is not set.

In the above example, we use PHP built-in function isset() to check if the cookie name user_name is set in the user’s browser. So if the cookie named user_name exists within the $_COOKIE superglobal then if statment will be true otherwise it will be false.

This function will return us true if the cookie is set or if the cookie is not set it will return us false.

Example 02:

In this example, we set a cookie named user_name with value John.

setcookie("user_name", "John");  

if(!isset($_COOKIE["user_name"])) {  
    echo "Sorry, cookie is not found!";  
} else {  
    echo $_COOKIE["user_name"];  
}

The expected output will be

John

In the above example, we set cookie named user_name with value John. Then we checked if it exists through isset() function. So if the cookie exists the if statement will be true otherwise it will be false.

Conclusion:

This article explains how to check if a cookie exists or not. To check for the existence of a cookie, you can use the PHP built-in function isset() in conjunction with an if statement. If the cookie key exists within the $_COOKIE superglobal, the condition will be true, and the code within the if block will be executed.

• 1. Ternary Operator in PHP with Example
• 2. Types of PHP Errors
• 3. What are the PHP Increment and Decrement Operators?
• 4. How to Encrypt Passwords in PHP?
• 5. How to get the Current Date, Time, and Day in PHP?