Remove a cookie

Question

When I want to remove a Cookie I try

unset($_COOKIE['hello']);

I see in my cookie browser from firefox that the cookie still exists. How can I really remove the cookie?

Answer 1

When you enter 0 for time, you mean "now" for the browser.

setcookie("key", NULL, 0, "/");

I checked it in chrome browser that gives me:

Name: key
Content: Deleted
Created: Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 2:33:14 PM
Expires: Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 2:33:14 PM

Answer 2

A clean way to delete a cookie is to clear both of $_COOKIE value and browser cookie file :

if (isset($_COOKIE['key'])) {
    unset($_COOKIE['key']);
    setcookie('key', '', time() - 3600, '/'); // empty value and old timestamp
}

Answer 3

Just set the expiration date to one hour ago, if you want to "remove" the cookie, like this:

setcookie ("TestCookie", "", time() - 3600);

or

setcookie ("TestCookie", "", time() - 3600, "/~rasmus/", "example.com", 1);

Source: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.setcookie.php

You should use the filter_input() function for all globals which a visitor can enter/manipulate, like this:

$visitors_ip = filter_input(INPUT_COOKIE, 'id');

You can read more about it here: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.filter-input.php and here: http://www.w3schools.com/php/func_filter_input.asp

Answer 4

Most of you are forgetting that this will only work on a local machine. On a domain you will need a pattern like this example.

setcookie("example_cookie", 'password', time()-3600, "/", $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']);

Answer 5

It's simple!

setcookie("cookiename", "cookievalue", 1);

Answer 6

To delete cookie you just need to set the value to NULL:

"If you've set a cookie with nondefault values for an expiration time, path, or domain, you must provide those same values again when you delete the cookie for the cookie to be deleted properly." Quote from "Learning PHP5" book.

So this code should work(works for me):

Setting the cookie: setcookie('foo', 'bar', time() + 60 * 5);

Deleting the cookie: setcookie('foo', '', time() + 60 * 5);

But i noticed that everybody is setting the expiry date to past, is that necessary, and why?