WooCommerce cookies and sessions - Get the current products in cart

Just to follow up on this in case anyone is interested. The selected answer is extremely helpful in breaking things down. The OP was asking how to get the products from the session cookies so I thought I would follow up.

Here is how I was able to extract the cart data from the wc_woocommerce_session_ cookie:

  $session_id = null;
  $values = null;

  foreach( $_COOKIE as $key => $value ) {

    if( stripos( $key, 'wp_woocommerce_session_' ) === false ) {
      continue;
    }

    $values = explode( '||', $value );

  }

  $session_id = $values[0];
  $session = new WC_Session_Handler();
  $session_data = $session->get_session( $session_id );

  // Contains array of items in cart including product ids, quantities, totals, etc.
  $cart_data = unserialize( $session_data['cart'] );

As you will see below, woocommerce_cart_hash doesn't contains the products in cart, because there is a third more complex cookie related to WooCommerce sessions DB table.

The data is not stored in the cookie herself but in a corresponding reference located in DB WooCommerce session (see below for details)...

You have also to note that WordPress enable some local data storage.

The data below is taken from a real example case, where a non logged user add 2 products to cart.

1) Woocommerce set 3 cookies when a non logged user add something to cart:

• woocommerce_cart_hash => 44ffcb32800e5b20cfbb080753d48408 (security/integrity hash)
• woocommerce_items_in_cart => 1 (set to 1 when something is in cart)
• wp_woocommerce_session_3413758cad2ada414127ffee7347e40f => ac5f880c99503169574ad996f35f85c5%7C%7C1469492696%7C%7C1469489096%7C%7C17e565032403642121f5ad12cfa72c41 (completely related to wp_woocommerce_sessions DB table created session at the same time than this cookie)

2) And in DB table wp_woocommerce_sessions a session is generated at the same time:

session_id => 6
session_key => ac5f880c99503169574ad996f35f85c5
session_value => a:18:{s:4:"cart";s:600:"a:2:{s:32:"d82c8d1619ad8176d665453cfb2e55f0";a:9:{s:10:"product_id";i:53;s:12:"variation_id";i:0;s:9:"variation";a:0:{}s:8:"quantity";i:1;s:10:"line_total";d:35;s:8:"line_tax";i:0;s:13:"line_subtotal";i:35;s:17:"line_subtotal_tax";i:0;s:13:"line_tax_data";a:2:{s:5:"total";a:0:{}s:8:"subtotal";a:0:{}}}s:32:"a5bfc9e07964f8dddeb95fc584cd965d";a:9:{s:10:"product_id";i:37;s:12:"variation_id";i:0;s:9:"variation";a:0:{}s:8:"quantity";i:1;s:10:"line_total";d:18;s:8:"line_tax";i:0;s:13:"line_subtotal";i:18;s:17:"line_subtotal_tax";i:0;s:13:"line_tax_data";a:2:{s:5:"total";a:0:{}s:8:"subtotal";a:0:{}}}}";s:15:"applied_coupons";s:6:"a:0:{}";s:23:"coupon_discount_amounts";s:6:"a:0:{}";s:27:"coupon_discount_tax_amounts";s:6:"a:0:{}";s:21:"removed_cart_contents";s:6:"a:0:{}";s:19:"cart_contents_total";d:53;s:5:"total";d:53;s:8:"subtotal";i:53;s:15:"subtotal_ex_tax";i:53;s:9:"tax_total";i:0;s:5:"taxes";s:6:"a:0:{}";s:14:"shipping_taxes";s:6:"a:0:{}";s:13:"discount_cart";i:0;s:17:"discount_cart_tax";i:0;s:14:"shipping_total";N;s:18:"shipping_tax_total";i:0;s:9:"fee_total";i:0;s:4:"fees";s:6:"a:0:{}";}
session_expiry => 1469492696

I can't explain all core processes (for that you will need to look in php core files).
But if you look to wp_woocommerce_session_… cookie value you will see that you can cut it with %7C%7C substring, so we get here 4 substrings for this cookie value:

• ac5f880c99503169574ad996f35f85c5 (same reference that in the DB session_key and session_value of table wp_woocommerce_sessions).
• 1469492696 (the DB session_expiry of table wp_woocommerce_sessions).
• 1469489096 (same thing above).
• 17e565032403642121f5ad12cfa72c41 (??? - I don't really know what is this for…)

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If the user come back and delete one item in his cart:

• woocommerce_cart_hash cookie value changes
• woocommerce_items_in_cart cookie value don't changes as an item remains in cart.
• wp_woocommerce_session_3413758cad2ada414127ffee7347e40f cookie value don't changes.
• DB wp_woocommerce_sessions TABLE, the session ID 6 has been deleted/replaced by a new generated session ID is that reflects the cart changes (only one product).

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So at this point you can see the relation between cookies and session DB table wp_woocommerce_sessions that contains all cart data related to non logged users
(in a session_value serialized multidimensional array or object).

With Class WC_Cart you will be able to get this data.
You should also be able to use WC()->cart syntax in your php code…

With Class WC_Session_Handler you will be able to manipulate sessions herself.

And to finish, Class WC_Ajax is used for cart changes.

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References:

• Class WC_Cart
• Class WC_Session_Handler
• Class WC_Ajax