In PHP, a cookie is a small piece of data that is stored on the users computer by the server. It is often used to identify a user and can be created and retrieved using PHP. Cookies are typically used to keep track of information such as a username, which the site can retrieve to personalize the page when the user visits the website next time. They are created using the setcookie()
function, and the basic syntax for creating a cookie is setcookie(name, value, expire, path, domain, secure, httponly)
, where only the name parameter is required. Cookies can be accessed using the $_COOKIE
superglobal variable. Cookies are sent with each request made by the browser, allowing the server to identify returning users and personalize their experience.