Question

From my understanding $_COOKIE gives me all the cookies in a user’s browser.

But when I do

var_dump($_COOKIE);

I get the following:

Array
    (
        [wp-settings-1] => m8=o&m2=o&m5=o&m4=o&m3=o&m1=o&m7=o&m0=o
        [wp-settings-time-1] => 1329859655
        [PHPSESSID] => ST88bLB7PE5S9BbY5oXxLgDIcas
    )

This list does not match the list I see in the browser. For example, PHPSESSID is not in the list of cookies in my browser. Am I accessing the wrong variable?

Thanks.

Answer 1

As mentioned $_COOKIE only gives you cookies for the current domain/path. You cannot see all cookies in a browser. You can see how this works if you ever sniff/view HTTP packets. When you make an HTTP request, the browser sends cookies to the server. This page has some excellent examples of what that HTTP traffic looks like.