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# Chapter 17. Cookies

PHP transparently supports HTTP cookies. Cookies are a mechanism for storing data in the remote browser and thus tracking or identifying return users. You can set cookies using the setcookie() function. Cookies are part of the HTTP header, so setcookie() must be called before any output is sent to the browser. This is the same limitation that header() has. You can use the output buffering functions to delay the script output until you have decided whether or not to set any cookies or send any headers.

Any cookies sent to you from the client will automatically be turned into a PHP variable just like GET and POST method data, depending on the `register_globals` and `variables_order` configuration variables. If you wish to assign multiple values to a single cookie, just add [] to the cookie name.

In PHP 4.1.0 and later, the `$_COOKIE` auto-global array will always be set with any cookies sent from the client. `$HTTP_COOKIE_VARS` is also set in earlier versions of PHP when the `track_vars` configuration variable is set.

For more details, including notes on browser bugs, see the setcookie() function.

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