How can the use of cookies affect the behavior of session variables in PHP applications?

When cookies are used in PHP applications, they can potentially override or interfere with session variables. This can lead to unexpected behavior or security vulnerabilities in the application. To prevent this, developers should ensure that session variables are properly managed and not overridden by cookie values.

// Start the session
session_start();

// Check if a session variable is already set, if not, set it
if (!isset($_SESSION['example_variable'])) {
    $_SESSION['example_variable'] = 'example_value';
}