PHP Programming 101

What exactly is a cookie? It’s not a food, in the computer world, a cookie is a small amount of information sent by a Web server to a web browser. They are sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. They are used for tracking, storing, authenticating information regarding the users which include sites visited. They give capabilities that make the web easier to navigate. If you are using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to browse, you can see all of the cookies that are stored on your machine. They are usually stored in a directory called c:\windows\cookies.

It is composed of a cookie name and cookie value. The setcookie function() can be used to send a cookie to a browser to request your PHP page.