php cookie does not work at the first time reading

Question

I am a beginner for PHP and studying to use cookie for login. Would any body please check my code to see what is my problem, or let me how to fix this problem.

When I open the page at the first time, the cookie will not work. It will work when I repeated to open that link. However, I still could not make it work after I use function include and header One of codes is :

One code cookie.php is :

<?php
setcookie("cookiename",$_REQUEST['name']);
if(isset($_COOKIE['cookiename'])){
$cookieSet = ' The Cookie is ' .  $_COOKIE['cookiename'];
} else {
$cookieset = ' No Cookie has been set';
}
setcookie("cookiepwd",$_REQUEST['pwd']);
print_r($_COOKIE);
?>

When I run this code first time, it will does not show any thing. I can see cookie data at second time. From some website it is said that cookie would not be read at the same page.

So I moved print_r($_COOKIE) to second php file as well as added function include() or header() to above file, but both neither works.

Cookie2.php:

<?php
setcookie("cookiename",$_REQUEST['name']);
if(isset($_COOKIE['cookiename'])){
$cookieSet = ' The Cookie is ' .  $_COOKIE['cookiename'];
} else {
$cookieset = ' No Cookie has been set';
}
setcookie("cookiepwd",$_REQUEST['pwd']);
include(‘printcookie.php’);
//or header("Location: printcookie.php")
?>

printcookie.php:

<?php
print_r($_COOKIE);
?>

Thank you very much for answering in advance!

Michelle

Answer 1

setcookie only sets up the header, that is being sent to the client. It doesn't change the $_COOKIE superglobal.

In other hand - $_COOKIE is filled up with the cookies sent from the client

So at first step - you set the cookie with setcookie and have nothing in $_COOKIE because client hasn't sent it yet, and will only on the next request.

And there is no way of doing what you want, rather than modifying $_COOKIE manually

PS: it is a bad idea to put user's password in the cookie