check cookie if cookie exists

You can call the function getCookie with the name of the cookie you want, then check to see if it is = null.

function getCookie(name) {
    var dc = document.cookie;
    var prefix = name + "=";
    var begin = dc.indexOf("; " + prefix);
    if (begin == -1) {
        begin = dc.indexOf(prefix);
        if (begin != 0) return null;
    }
    else
    {
        begin += 2;
        var end = document.cookie.indexOf(";", begin);
        if (end == -1) {
        end = dc.length;
        }
    }
    // because unescape has been deprecated, replaced with decodeURI
    //return unescape(dc.substring(begin + prefix.length, end));
    return decodeURI(dc.substring(begin + prefix.length, end));
} 

function doSomething() {
    var myCookie = getCookie("MyCookie");

    if (myCookie == null) {
        // do cookie doesn't exist stuff;
    }
    else {
        // do cookie exists stuff
    }
}

document.cookie.indexOf('cookie_name=');

It will return -1 if that cookie does not exist.

p.s. Only drawback of it is (as mentioned in comments) that it will mistake if there is cookie set with such name: any_prefix_cookie_name

(Source)

ATTENTION! the chosen answer contains a bug (Jac's answer).

if you have more than one cookie (very likely..) and the cookie you are retrieving is the first on the list, it doesn't set the variable "end" and therefore it will return the entire string of characters following the "cookieName=" within the document.cookie string!

here is a revised version of that function:

function getCookie( name ) {
    var dc,
        prefix,
        begin,
        end;

    dc = document.cookie;
    prefix = name + "=";
    begin = dc.indexOf("; " + prefix);
    end = dc.length; // default to end of the string

    // found, and not in first position
    if (begin !== -1) {
        // exclude the "; "
        begin += 2;
    } else {
        //see if cookie is in first position
        begin = dc.indexOf(prefix);
        // not found at all or found as a portion of another cookie name
        if (begin === -1 || begin !== 0 ) return null;
    } 

    // if we find a ";" somewhere after the prefix position then "end" is that position,
    // otherwise it defaults to the end of the string
    if (dc.indexOf(";", begin) !== -1) {
        end = dc.indexOf(";", begin);
    }

    return decodeURI(dc.substring(begin + prefix.length, end) ).replace(/\"/g, ''); 
}

regexObject.test( String ) is faster than string.match( RegExp ).

The MDN site describes the format for document.cookie, and has an example regex to grab a cookie (document.cookie.replace(/(?:(?:^|.*;\s*)test2\s*\=\s*([^;]*).*$)|^.*$/, "$1");). Based on that, I'd go for this:

/^(.*;)?\s*cookie1\s*=/.test(document.cookie);

The question seems to ask for a solution which returns false when the cookie is set, but empty. In that case:

/^(.*;)?\s*cookie1\s*=\s*[^;]/.test(document.cookie);

Tests

function cookieExists(input) {return /^(.*;)?\s*cookie1\s*=/.test(input);}
function cookieExistsAndNotBlank(input) {return /^(.*;)?\s*cookie1\s*=\s*[^;]/.test(input);}
var testCases = ['cookie1=;cookie1=345534;', 'cookie1=345534;cookie1=;', 'cookie1=345534;', ' cookie1 = 345534; ', 'cookie1=;', 'cookie123=345534;', 'cookie=345534;', ''];
console.table(testCases.map(function(s){return {'Test String': s, 'cookieExists': cookieExists(s), 'cookieExistsAndNotBlank': cookieExistsAndNotBlank(s)}}));

instead of the cookie variable you would just use document.cookie.split...

var cookie = 'cookie1=s; cookie1=; cookie2=test';
var cookies = cookie.split('; ');
cookies.forEach(function(c){
  if(c.match(/cookie1=.+/))
   console.log(true);
});

For anyone using Node, I found a nice and simple solution with ES6 imports and the cookie module!

First install the cookie module (and save as a dependency):

npm install --save cookie

Then import and use:

import cookie from 'cookie';
let parsed = cookie.parse(document.cookie);
if('cookie1' in parsed) 
    console.log(parsed.cookie1);

use this method instead:

function getCookie(name) {
    var value = "; " + document.cookie;
    var parts = value.split("; " + name + "=");
    if (parts.length == 2) return parts.pop().split(";").shift();
    else return null;
}

function doSomething() {
    var myCookie = getCookie("MyCookie");

    if (myCookie == null) {
        // do cookie doesn't exist stuff;
    }
    else {
        // do cookie exists stuff
    }
}

/// ************************************************ cookie_exists

/// global entry point, export to global namespace

/// <synopsis>
///   cookie_exists ( name );
///
/// <summary>
///   determines if a cookie with name exists
///
/// <param name="name">
///   string containing the name of the cookie to test for 
//    existence
///
/// <returns>
///   true, if the cookie exists; otherwise, false
///
/// <example>
///   if ( cookie_exists ( name ) );
///     {
///     // do something with the existing cookie
///     }
///   else
///     {
///     // cookies does not exist, do something else 
///     }

function cookie_exists ( name )
  {
  var exists = false;

  if ( document.cookie )
    {
    if ( document.cookie.length > 0 )
      {
                                    // trim name
      if ( ( name = name.replace ( /^\s*/, "" ).length > 0 ) )
        {
        var cookies = document.cookie.split ( ";" );
        var name_with_equal = name + "=";

        for ( var i = 0; ( i < cookies.length ); i++ )
          {
                                    // trim cookie
          var cookie = cookies [ i ].replace ( /^\s*/, "" );

          if ( cookie.indexOf ( name_with_equal ) === 0 )
            {
            exists = true;
            break;
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }

  return ( exists );

  } // cookie_exists

I have crafted an alternative non-jQuery version:

document.cookie.match(/^(.*;)?\s*MyCookie\s*=\s*[^;]+(.*)?$/)

It only tests for cookie existence. A more complicated version can also return cookie value:

value_or_null = (document.cookie.match(/^(?:.*;)?\s*MyCookie\s*=\s*([^;]+)(?:.*)?$/)||[,null])[1]

Put your cookie name in in place of MyCookie.

If you're using jQuery, you can use the jquery.cookie plugin.

Getting the value for a particular cookie is done as follows:

$.cookie('MyCookie'); // Returns the cookie value

This is an old question, but here's the approach I use ...

function getCookie(name) {
    var match = document.cookie.match(RegExp('(?:^|;\\s*)' + name + '=([^;]*)')); return match ? match[1] : null;
}

This returns null either when the cookie doesn't exist, or when it doesn't contain the requested name.
Otherwise, the value (of the requested name) is returned.

A cookie should never exist without a value -- because, in all fairness, what's the point of that? ????
If it's no longer needed, it's best to just get rid of it all together.

function deleteCookie(name) {
    document.cookie = name +"=; Path=/; Expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT;";
}

function getCookie(name) {

    var dc = document.cookie;
    var prefix = name + "=";
    var begin = dc.indexOf("; " + prefix);
    if (begin == -1) {
        begin = dc.indexOf(prefix);
        if (begin != 0) return null;
        else{
            var oneCookie = dc.indexOf(';', begin);
            if(oneCookie == -1){
                var end = dc.length;
            }else{
                var end = oneCookie;
            }
            return dc.substring(begin, end).replace(prefix,'');
        } 

    }
    else
    {
        begin += 2;
        var end = document.cookie.indexOf(";", begin);
        if (end == -1) {
            end = dc.length;
        }
        var fixed = dc.substring(begin, end).replace(prefix,'');
    }
    // return decodeURI(dc.substring(begin + prefix.length, end));
    return fixed;
} 

Tried @jac function, got some trouble, here's how I edited his function.

Using Javascript:

 function getCookie(name) {
      let matches = document.cookie.match(new RegExp(
        "(?:^|; )" + name.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g, '\\$1') + "=([^;]*)"
      ));
      return matches ? decodeURIComponent(matches[1]) : undefined;
    }

function getCookie(name = '') {
    let cookies = document.cookie;
    let cookiestore = {};
    cookies = cookies.split(";");
    cookies.forEach(function(cookie) {
        cookie = cookie.split("=");
        if (cookie[0].substr(0, 1) == ' ') {
            cookie[0] = cookie[0].substr(1);
        }
        cookiestore[cookie[0]] = cookie[1];
    });
    return (name !== '' ? cookiestore[name] : cookiestore);
}

To get a object of cookies simply call getCookie()

To check if a cookie exists, do it like this:

if (!getCookie('myCookie')) {
    console.log('myCookie does not exist.');
} else {
    console.log('myCookie value is ' + getCookie('myCookie'));
}

Or just use a ternary operator.