PHP - $_cookie

I am trying to make a login using cookies, I had been using sessions but i need to use cookies for it now. I have a page called login.php, and i use ajax to login. It seems to be setting the cookie and printing the value of it out when i login, however that's about it. When i'm reading the cookie on other pages it doesn't appear to recognize a cookie. However, If i set the cookie on just a regular index page it has no problem with setting it and reading it. it works fine when i do that.

This is how i set the cookie on the login page (also the exact code i used to test setting it on the index page):

$expire=time()+60*60*24*30;
setcookie("id", $dbid, $expire);
$session = $_COOKIE['id'];

then to read it on other pages i just use:

$session = $_COOKIE['id'];

I like to use $_REQUEST to get something from either $_POST or $_GET. Annoying though, it also includes values from cookie, like the PHP session id, FCK editor cookies and the google tracking code. Is there anyway to remove cookie values from request, besides looping through cookie and unsetting the values I don't want?

Hi y'all. It's been forever and a day since I've dealt with cookies, and I can't get through the cobwebs in my brain about them. I know that cookies have to be set before any output goes to the browser, but if I'm not mistaken, it's the same with sessions and sessions work in this situation. Unfortunately, the client needs cookies for integration with an existing piece of software.   Basically, what's happening is this: You load a page, click the 'login' button, which uses JQuery to change the display on the login screen from 'none' to 'block'. Use the newly-visible login form to enter username and password, which are passed via ajax to my login function. If the login is successful, I set the cookie variable and redirect the user to the protected page. However, despite the ajax reporting a successful login and redirecting the browser as expected, the check on the protected page is kicking the user back to the beginning because the cookie was never actually set.   FunctionsClass.php:

/**
 *	Logs in the requesting user with the agent and email values supplied via AJAX.
 *	@return		string					JSON-encoded array
 */
	public function agentLogin(){
		$ret['success'] = $this->_site->login($_POST['username'],$_POST['password']);
		$ret['location'] = '/protected-page';
 		print(json_encode($ret));
 		die();
	 }

Site.php (that's $_site in FunctionsClass):

/**
 *	Logs in the agent.
 *	Checks to see if the user is already logged in, if not, attempts to do so.
 *	@param		string		$un				username
 *	@param		string		$pw				password
 *	@return		boolean
 */
	public function logIn($un, $pw){
		if($this->isLoggedIn()){
			return true;
		}
		return $this->logAgentIn($un,$pw);
	}

/**
 *	Check to see if the cookie set so we know if the user has logged in.
 *	@return		boolean
 */
	public function isLoggedIn(){
//		return !empty($_SESSION['mycheckvariable']);
		return !empty($_COOKIE['mycheckvariable']);
	}

/**
 *	Log the user in.
 *	@param		string		$un				username
 *	@param		string		$pw				password
 *	@return		boolean
 */
	private function logAgentIn($un,$pw){
//		$_SESSION['mycheckvariable']['email'] = 'me@notmyemail.com';
		setcookie('mycheckvariable','me@notmyrealemail.com',time()+60*60*8,'/');
		return true;
	}

It's not as though I'm even actually checking a database - just trying to stub this out for client presentation. And, if I uncomment the two lines using sessions and comment out the cookies, it all works perfectly. I'm not at all sure what I'm missing and would very much appreciate some other eyes on this - any takers?   I'm using WordPress, if that matters at all...   Thanks in advance!