remembering past user logins

[infinitium]

how do I implement my scripts.... to remember the user's ID?

I'd like my scripts to show the user's ID when he arrives at the main page. The user would then just have to visually confirm the ID, and click a Submit button to enter the page.

I know this will probably involve cookies.. but can someone give me detailed steps? Thanks!

[infinitium]

Anyone have a clue?

[Anarchos]

There aren't really any detailed steps to give out. Set the cookie with the username whenever you log in; whenever you access the login page check if the username cookies exists and output if it does. http://php.net/setcookie

[infinitium]

I'll check it out, thanks Anarchos!

[infinitium]

okay.. i just checked out the site, and I'm confused!!

So I specify the setcookie() command before any HTML opening tags... just like session_header(), which seems to work for me, if I put it right at the top of the page.

Now, I've went thru the comments & all, and I still don't grasp the concept. I've got a mainpage.php, that accepts a $password, and then redirects to index2.php.

1) So, I put the setcookie command on mainpage.php, correct?

2) The path confuses me:

int setcookie (string name [, string value [, int expire [, string path [, string domain [, int secure]]]]])

Am I correct if I understand it as:

setcookie("name of the variable", "value to put in the variable", "time to expire");

Eg: setcookie("UserID", "$userid", "$date");


3) Once a cookie is set, how do I retrieve it?

4) What happens if I don't specify a time to expire?

Thanks!

[Anarchos]

All previously set cookies are stored in the $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS array. So you'd do something like this:

$cookies = &$HTTP_COOKIE_VARS; // don't want to type out that long name every time
if (isset($cookies['userid'])) echo $cookies['userid'];

If you don't specify a date the cookie will be deleted by the browser when it closes.

[infinitium]

If you don't specify a date the cookie will be deleted by the browser when it closes.

OK... say I don't specify an expiry date. Does this mean that future logons will not automatically recognize my $userID and take me straight into the next page? If so, and the browser deletes the cookies upon exit, then doesn't that defeat the purpose of cookies in the 1st place?

[Anarchos]

If you don't specify a date then the browser will delete the cookie whenever the browser closes. Most times people will set a date of a year ahead.

[infinitium]

Originally posted by Anarchos
If you don't specify a date then the browser will delete the cookie whenever the browser closes. Most times people will set a date of a year ahead.

Yes Anarchos... you mentioned that before. Could you answer my questions? Just need to clarify my concept of cookies.


"OK... say I don't specify an expiry date. Does this mean that future logons will not automatically recognize my $userID and take me straight into the next page? If so, and the browser deletes the cookies upon exit, then doesn't that defeat the purpose of cookies in the 1st place?"

[Anarchos]

I did answer your question

[infinitium]

well, you did... but not directly, and I'm still slightly in the dark.

Let's try this, give me a simple Yes or No answer to these questions:

1) Say I don't specify an expiry date. Does this mean that future logons will not automatically recognize my $userID and take me straight into the next page? [Yes or No]

2) If so, and the browser deletes the cookies upon exit, then doesn't that defeat the purpose of cookies in the 1st place? [Yes or No]

Thank you!

[Anarchos]

1. Depends, read my previous post
2. No, there's a reason that a lot of people use cookies.

[infinitium]

Okay.. here's what I've done so far:

I've got a mainpage.php where I put the following cookie code at the top of the page before any HTML and HEAD declarations:

<? setcookie("userID","$id_num"); ?> 
<? echo $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS["userID"]; ?>

So, further down this page, I have a Submit form, where the user's password is captured using $id_num. I then hit Submit, verify the p/w and proceed to the next pages. Later, reloading the mainpage.php doesn't see my $id_num being displayed.... am I doing this correctly?

[thebobert]

If you do not specify a expire date the browser deletes the cookie upon exit. You need to set the expire dater in the future sometime. ie if you want there login info stored for a week then set expire date to 1 week from today.

1) Say I don't specify an expiry date. Does this mean that future logons will not automatically recognize my $userID and take me straight into the next page? [Yes or No]

Yes, if they exit their browser then return to your site later.

[Anarchos]

Originally posted by thebobert
Yes, if they exit their browser then return to your site later.

No, it wouldn't: he didn't set an expiration date so it'll be deleted as soon as he closed the browser.

[infinitium]

this expiration date's in seconds, right?

3600 <==> 1 hour?

[Anarchos]

You have to do time() + 3600, because it's actually a unix timestamp (seconds since 1970) and time() returns the current timestamp.

[thebobert]

1) Say I don't specify an expiry date. Does this mean that future logons will not automatically recognize my $userID and take me straight into the next page? [Yes or No]

Yes, if they exit their browser then return to your site later.

^ I meant if it was not set then when they leave it is gone.


3600 seconds = 1 hour
86400 seconds = 1 day
604800 seconds = 1 week

[infinitium]

heh. can i specify an exp_date that is indefinite? Say 3-4 months or so. Man.. that's a whole lot of numbers...

3 months =
3*30 days =
3*30*24 hours =
3*30*24*60 mins =
3*30*24*60*60 secs = 7776000

[Anarchos]

A year is a close to indefinite as is necessary. Just do something like this: time() + 3600*24*365 so you can easily see how long it is.

[exbabylon]

setcookie ("my_username", $username, time()+(3600*24*365), "/", ".domain.com", 0); // set cookie for one year 

Netscape requires that the www. be infront of a URL... so I put this at the top of all my pages:

if(!strisrt("www", $HTTP_HOST)){
    header (Location: $REQUEST_URI);
} 

[Anarchos]

Don't know where you go that, but Netscape doesn't require a www.

[exbabylon]

Oh, and the little dot, decimal thingy MUST be in front of your domain name... and NO http. amd NO www!!! The code I gave you is cross platform/browser safe as long as you have the WWW in front of the domain when you're viewing it.

[exbabylon]

What version NS are you talking about? I'm discussing 3.x-4.x... I don't have NS 6 yet.

[infinitium]

OKs.... I've got my code setup as follows:

<? setcookie("userID","$id_num","time()+7776000"); ?> <!--cookie expires in 3 months -->

Now, when I reload the main page, I see my userID output from:
echo $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS["userID"];

However, once I close the browser and reopen it, the userID doesn't appear under ECHO. Same thing happens if I try to access the main page opening a second IE window while the first isn't closed.....