Sometimes, while working with [Cookies](http://www.w3schools.com/php/php%5Fcookies.asp) in PHP you may want to make a cookie never expire (e.g. in a rating script where you set a cookie on user’s computers, although it’s not wise to use cookies as the only protection against multiple ratings by the same user, because cookies are easily deleted). Unfortunately, the setcookie() function does not have a specific argument for the expiration to be “never”, but you can set an expiration date in the distant future to achieve this.

For example:

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Where 60\*60\*24\*365\*10 is equal to:  
10 years = 60 seconds \* 60 minutes \* 24 hours \* 365 days \* 10 years

So to make a cookie expire in 50 years for example you would just need to modify the 10 at the end and the PHP snippet will look like this:

Done! Now you have a PHP cookie that never expires (or at least it will outlive your computer).


How to Set a Cookie to Never Expire

This PHP login script example is a very simple login system which you can use as a base for your future projects. You should note that it needs to be secured before using on a live system. Some things to do before using it: md5 the password and compare against a md5 encrypted version of the submitted form password, [set cookie](http://php.net/setcookie) which can be then checked at the admin.php page if login was successful.

<?php
$user = "user";
$pass = "pass";
$access = false; // deny access by default

if($_REQUEST['username']==$user and 
$_REQUEST['password']==$pass)
// checks if username and password are correct
{
	$access = true;
}
else // username or password are wrong
{
	$error = true;
}

if($error===true){
	echo "

Login Error

";
}

if($access === true){
	header("Location: ./admin.php");
	die();
	// login successful
	// redirect to real page
}
$thispage = htmlentities($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], ENT_QUOTES);
?>

<form action="" method="POST">


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If you don’t like request based logins, you may also use [PHP’s HTTP authentication](http://ephp.info/simple-php-http-authentication "Simple PHP HTTP Authentication").


PHP Login Script Example

Sometimes you may want to hide the contents of a page (e.g. admin page) in a very simple manner. The best and simplest method is to use the PHP’s built in HTTP authentication. It’s both secure and compatible with 99% of your visitor’s browsers.

The authentication code must be at the top of the PHP script, otherwise you will usually get a “Headers Already Sent” error.


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