If I understand correctly, you're thinking of storing actual user-entered data in a cookie that gets recalled, possibly altered and stored again, or used.

Security and data integrity problems aside (and they're numerous, both in data storage in cookies, and in hidden form fields), I'd recommend:

This way, you can retrieve and add to or alter the data on the server, rather than the browser, and you don't have to worry about cookies expiring, cookie length restrictions, and the like.

An excellent article about just such as arrangement, by our very own merlyn, is Here. Also, a Super Search about sessions and state will show many other discussions, and some snippets, that are helpful.

In reply to Re: html and cookie expiration by tjh
in thread html and cookie expiration by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.