function setCookie(cookieName, cookieValue, expireDays)
{
/* Pass in three strings - the name of the cookie, the value, and the expire date.
Pass in a "" empty string for expireDate to set a session cookie (no expires date).
Pass in any other date for expire as a number of days to be added to today's date. */
    if (expireDays== "")
    {
        expires = "";
    }
    else
    {
        expires = new Date();
        expires.setDate(expires.getDate() + expireDays);
        expires = expires.toGMTString();
    }
    document.cookie = cookieName+"="+cookieValue+";expires="+expires;
}

function removeCookie (cookieName)
{
/* Pass in the name of the cookie as a string and it will be removed.
*/
expires = Now();
document.cookie = cookieName+"= ;expires="+expires.toGMTString();
}

function getCookie (cookieName)
{
cookieValue = "";
if (document.cookie.indexOf(cookieName) == -1)
{
// there is no cookie by this name for this user
return cookieValue;
}
else
{
// get the beginning index of the cookie by looking for the cookie name
cookieStart = document.cookie.indexOf(cookieName);
// get the beginning index of the cookie value by looking for theequal sign after the name
cookieValStart = (document.cookie.indexOf("=", cookieStart) + 1);
// get the end index of the cookie value by looking for the semi-colon after the value
cookieValEnd = document.cookie.indexOf(";", cookieStart);
// if no semi-colon, then use the whole length
if (cookieValEnd == -1)
{
cookieValEnd = document.cookie.length
}
// use substring to get the text between the two indices and that is the value of the cookie
cookieValue = document.cookie.substring(cookieValStart,cookieValEnd);
return cookieValue;
}
}

function detectCookies()
{
/* function returns true if cookies are enables, false if not */
setCookie("test", "test", "");
tmp = getCookie("test");
if (tmp != "test")
{
return false;
}
else
{
return true;
}
}