Php Cookie based voting script

[BritishAgent]

I'm just starting to learn PHP.

I have a website where we are collecting votes for something. I want to use cookies to deter people from re-voting (yes, this is not efficient if they're smart enough to turn their cookies off). I seem to have successfully created a cookie, and then code to read that cookie and redirect. However, it places the cookie before looking for the cookie, so it immediately redirects, rather than redirecting on the next visit.

Can I either:

a) set the cookie to be installed in a few moments (or after the page loads - with the reading script being run immediately as the page loads)

b) set the cookie to be placed on page exit

c) set the cookie to be placed on the submit button for the form for voting?

Thanks for any help.

C.

Here's the code I'm using, in this order, at the very top of the page after the first <?... setting:

if (!isset($_COOKIE['voted']) || $_COOKIE['voted'] != "voted") {
  header ("Location: ../thanks-for-voting.php");
}
 
setcookie("voted", "voted", time()+86400*10);
 

[Atli]

Hi. Welcome to TSDN!

This is a matter of how you structure your code, I would think.
The way you posted it, it will always redirect you, because it checks to see if the cookie does NOT exists, and seeing as it doesn't, it redirects you. It will never reach the setcookie() function.

Consider this:

if(!isset($_COOKIE['voted']) or $_COOKIE['voted'] != 'voted']) {
  # Do your voting thing
 
  setcookie("voted", "voted", time()+86400*10);
}
else {
  header("Location: /thank-you-for-voting.php");
}
 

Would that work for you?

[BritishAgent]

Thank you so much Atli. This was very helpful.

Can you tell me which part was the part that makes it NOT exist?

And, also, what do the ! marks represent?

Thanks again.

[Atli]

Thank you so much Atli. This was very helpful.

Can you tell me which part was the part that makes it NOT exist?

And, also, what do the ! marks represent?

Thanks again.

The isset() function check if a variable or an element exists, if it has any value. It returns a boolean value, TRUE if it exists or FALSE if it doesn't.

The ! mark "flips" a boolean value, kind of like flipping over a coin. It can be used to check if a boolean value is false.

By using it with a function like isset(), you are essentially flipping it's value. If it returns FALSE, the ! mark will change it into TRUE.

# This is obviously not true
if(true == false)...
 
# But this is
if(true != false)...
 
# So this
if(!isset($variable))...
 
# Can also be written like this
if(isset($variable) == false)...
 

[ak1dnar]

[Help! This should be easy - PHP and Cookies] changed the thread title little bit.