What best practices should be followed when working with cookies in PHP?

When working with cookies in PHP, it is important to follow best practices to ensure security and privacy. This includes setting secure and HttpOnly flags, validating and sanitizing cookie data, and avoiding sensitive information in cookies.

// Set a cookie with secure and HttpOnly flags
setcookie('cookie_name', 'cookie_value', time() + 3600, '/', 'example.com', true, true);

// Validate and sanitize cookie data
$cookie_value = filter_var($_COOKIE['cookie_name'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Avoid storing sensitive information in cookies
// Instead, use session variables for sensitive data
$_SESSION['user_id'] = $user_id;