php cookie

Can you try and re ask your question. What is it that you are trying to do? Do you want to set a cookie to let you know if a user has been to your site before or not?

If so, then a simple cookie to remember the users name would be something like this. For this example you would need to know their username and would be kept in the variable $username

<?php
$value = $username;
$cookieName = 'visitor';
setcookie($cookieName, $value, time()+3600*24*365);  /* expires in 1 Year */
?>

The above code will write and save a cookie on the users computer. The cookie name in this case will be 'visitor'. You can name this whatever you like. The cookie expires in 1 year. you can modify the code to make it any length you want or if you want to delete the cookie, set a date in the past and it will be deleted as soon as the browser is closed.

All it does is store the $username variable/value. To get the data in the cookie on another page or your main page you use this code...

<?php
if (isset($_COOKIE['visitor'])) {
// get the users name here
$username = $_COOKIE['visitor'];
}
?>

Now you have the username in the $username variable when they revisit your website.

Is this the sort of thing you are trying to achieve?

?>

The general design pattern for what you want may be described in this article:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Web_Languages-Standards/PHP/A_3314-How-to-Show-an-Introductory-Web-Page-Once-Using-PHP.html

HTH, ~Ray