Question

This function creates & stores a cookie, and here it stores the name of the visitor in a cookie variable. According to the source

The parameters of the function hold the name of the cookie, the
value of the cookie, and the number of days until the cookie expires.

In the function we first convert the number of days to a valid
date, then we add the number of days until the cookie should expire.
After that we store the cookie name, cookie value and the expiration
date in the document.cookie object.

function setCookie(c_name,value,exdays)
{
  var exdate=new Date();
  exdate.setDate(exdate.getDate() + exdays);
  var c_value=escape(value) + 
              ((exdays==null) ? "" : ";expires="+exdate.toUTCString());
  document.cookie=c_name + "=" + c_value;
}

I can see how the Date works, but what is happening in this part:

var c_value=escape(value) + ((exdays==null) ? "" : "; 

Here is the invoking code:

function checkCookie()
{
var username=getCookie("username");
if (username!=null && username!="")
  {
  alert("Welcome again " + username);
  }
else 
  {
  username=prompt("Please enter your name:","");
  if (username!=null && username!="")
    {
    setCookie("username",username,365);
    }
  }
}

I appreciate any tips or advice.

Answer 1

The line is wrapped, here is the full line :

var c_value=escape(value) + ((exdays==null) ? "" : ";expires="+exdate.toUTCString());

this means if the exdays parameter was not specifed (exdays==null) then add blank ("") else add ";expires=" plus the date (exdate) as a string using toUTCString()

To learn more about cookies use Mozilla MDN instead of w3schools. This kind of if statement is a conditional operator