prefix the onclick with javascript: like thus...

<a href=\"#\" onclick=\"javascript:DelCookie('datastring')\">Erase Data</a>

hmmm nevermind then

Yeah, I had already tried that, to no avail. Any other ideas?

I just tried it in a different browser. Same result. Both functions are called, data isn't erased. So it's not a browser issue.

Oh, I know what the issue is... the cookie will still exist, but with no value, until you close the browser. All you've done is set the value to empty and the expiration to be at browser window close.

PHP is reading the cookie again each time it parses the page. All of the data is displayed even after the cookie is "deleted" and the page refreshed, so what you're saying can't be happening.

I'd have to see just what you mean first hand, but if you are just doing a refresh/reload, it will repost the exact same info to PHP, which will include the cookie's data from the cache.

OK. I think I'm just going to tell the user to clear the data by exiting and reopening his browser if he needs to. It has minimum functionality, and that's all we really need at this point.

Thanks again for your (and everyone's) help.

@Draugnar - thats not how to remove a cookie.
@rlumley - Do you want to just email it and I'll have a look at your code directly?
Putting the cvs stuff at the end isn't enough, it has to be blocked executing unless specifically required.
@rlum - honestly, session would make this SOOO much easier, and is incredibly easy to implement. Just start your code (ie inside the <?php tag) with
session_start();
Then, for the rest of the code, just use $_SESSION as a standard variable, and it will be saved for the next time the user wants to do something. To clear it just do $_SESSION=array();

He was running with a code example I found on the web as well. I normally use code behind to delete cookies and have honestly never tried it from Javascript.

Also, to stop it refreshing, you need to make the function return false.

Or, don't put the href in at all. Anchor doesn't require an href. If you just use a onClick event, only the onClick event will run.

JavaScript is an OO language, but it uses prototypal inheritance rather than class-based inheritance. It's actually very neat in a lot of ways, and I've written half of an article for my website which tries to introduce it to people coming from a class based background
(You can say "OO means class based so it isn't OO" though, and then it's an argument about words which is pointless)

Re: what the code is doing I think some info has been lost along the way here, I'm not sure what the problem is exactly
If you want to delete a cookie though it can be a real pain, for some browsers you actually need to enter, when deleting it by setting it to a null string, the same expiry date that you originally entered. That might be for an obscure browser or my bad memory, but boy I've had some frustration just trying to get rid of cookies

My recommendation is to mark a cookie as being old and invalid, rather than try to really delete it

This is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to HTML5 acceptance; it has some really better ways to store client-side data than these horrible cookies

> My recommendation is to mark a cookie as being old and invalid, rather than try to
> really delete it
I should say "detect when a cookie is present but invalid and treat is as if deleted", since you should at least try to delete the cookie

I'm not going to argue the "is it/isn't it OO" issue. People more knowledgable than me argue it both ways. I just know that I can do both inheritance via prototyping and have public access to the properties of the prototype of the object and I can't implement an interface along with the prototype, so it is limited in scope to me.

wow so much stuff i missed entirely...

i'll jsut add a little bit, isn't it possible that the php mail interfaces also don't work in a server enviroment where file writing is not allowed? I've come across such minor problems before...

Did you end up storing all the data in a cookie and outputting it to the browser (and then copy and pasting it to excel?) crazyness.

Yes, its quite possible they've blocked mail or port handles (my mind tells me they're probably running in 'safe mode').

Still nothing to prevent him building up the data in $_SESSION (which almost has to be allowed) then outputting as csv from the server

yes, i can imagine a post form with a hidden variable (which is altered by the javascript with the co-ordinates onclick but before posting to the server...) and the added to the php output in the next load of the page again as a html form variable... but if what is working now works (with the also crazy cookie stuff) then that's great!