Why does my localization cookie seem to not want to change?

Question

Why cant I change cookie?

If you chose a language you cant change. You have to empty your cookies if you want to change language. Why is that?

if (isset($_GET['setLang']) && $_GET['setLang'] == 'en' 
|| isset($_COOKIE['setLang']) && $_COOKIE['setLang'] == 'en') {
setcookie("setLang", 'en', time()+(3600*12)); //expires in 12 hours
include('language/en/common.php');
}


elseif (isset($_GET['setLang']) && $_GET['setLang'] == 'se' 
|| isset($_COOKIE['setLang']) && $_COOKIE['setLang'] == 'se') {
setcookie("setLang", 'se', time()+(3600*12)); //expires in 12 hours
include('language/se/common.php');
}

else if (isset($_GET['setLang']) && $_GET['setLang'] == 'fr' 
|| isset($_COOKIE['setLang']) && $_COOKIE['setLang'] == 'fr') {
setcookie("setLang", 'fr', time()+(3600*12)); //expires in 12 hours
include('language/fr/common.php');
}

// default language is english
else {
  include('language/en/common.php');
}

Answer 1

You certainly can change cookies. You can't change languages using the logic you have there because the way you've written it, an existing setting in $_COOKIE will always override a setting in $_GET (except for en, where $_GET will be checked first, so right now you should be able to switch to en if you started with another language). You need to do all checks against $_GET first, then all checks against $_COOKIE, if you want to be able to change languages.

Answer 2

The logic hurt my brain, too.

$language = $_GET['setLang'] || $_COOKIE['setLang']) || 'en';
setcookie("setLang", $language, time()+(3600*12));
include('language/' . $language . '/common.php');

Should achieve the same effect and fix your cookie issues (untested, though).

Answer 3

setcookie() defines a cookie to be sent along with the rest of the HTTP headers. Like other headers, cookies must be sent before any output from your script (this is a protocol restriction). This requires that you place calls to this function prior to any output, including and tags as well as any whitespace.

http://in3.php.net/setcookie