Serialize not working??

[jaswinder_rana]

i am trying to set a cookie after serializing the data in it. but it doesnot seem to work.
i thought might be i am passwing wrong values so i just used three lines to see if its working . iused following lines

$cookie ="username||password||option";
$cookie = serialize($cookie);
echo $cookie; 

and the output is

s:26:"username||password||option";

is the answer correct?.
because the reason i am using this function is to kinda encrypt data of cookie

[Icheb]

serialize() is for an example used to store the contents of an array as a string representation, so that you can easily store it somewhere. See www.php.net/serialize .
You need other functions if you want to encrypt the data.

[jaswinder_rana]

so, as i suspected i was wrong. any ideas how i should store my cookie securely.
and thanx for the answer Icheb

[Dangermouse]

store the username and md5 of password in cookie, then when they return lookup the password from the username in the cookie, md5 it, and check it against the password in the cookie

[jaswinder_rana]

store the username and md5 of password in cookie, then when they return lookup the password from the username in the cookie, md5 it, and check it against the password in the cookie

i tried it and its working. the only problem is when i store it in cookie my password is md5 but my username is stored in clear text. should i worry about it & change it or that's the way to do it??

[Daimaju]

if you want to be able to encrypt and decrypt you might want to look at mcrypt