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Start your free trialAshish Pai
4,976 PointsWho sets the cookie?
Lets say:
- I open a website "Google.com". My browser will send a HTTP request to the server(google)
- Google will reply with a HTML page in its HTTP response.
From what I understand , a cookie is used by the server to maintain the state of the user. So, how and when is the cookie set? Im confused.
1 Answer
Luke Pettway
16,593 PointsThe cookie is set within the code based on certain criteria (signed up for a mailing list, first visit, login, etc). For example on a php site you could do:
<?php
$value = 'something from somewhere';
setcookie("TestCookie", $value);
setcookie("TestCookie", $value, time()+3600); /* expire in 1 hour */
setcookie("TestCookie", $value, time()+3600, "/~rasmus/", "example.com", 1);
?>
And do this on page load so that any user would immediately have a cookie created. You can also use javascript to do the same thing. If a user visited a page, and got a pop-up for a mailing list, it would typically be set to create a cookie if the pop-up is closed so that they won't get it on the next visit.