jQuery check if Cookie exists, if not create it

Question

I cannot get this code to work I must be missing something pretty simple. I am trying to check to see if a Cookie exists, if it does {do nothing} if it doesn't {create it}. I am testing the cookie by including an alert on a page. Basically I do not want the cookie to keep re-creating with a referral url, I am trying to grab only the FIRST referred URL.

$(document).ready(function(){   
  if ($.cookie('bas_referral') == null ){
   var ref = document.referrer.toLowerCase();  
   // set cookie  
   var cookURL =  $.cookie('bas_referral', ref, { expires: 1 }); 
  } 
 });  

Displaying the current cookie contents:

    // get cookie  
    alert($.cookie('bas_referral'));  

    // delete cookie  
     $.cookie('bas_referral', null);

Answer 1

I think the bulletproof way is:

if (typeof $.cookie('token') === 'undefined'){
 //no cookie
} else {
 //have cookie
}

Checking the type of a null, empty or undefined var always returns 'undefined'

Edit: You can get there even easier:

if (!!$.cookie('token')) {
 // have cookie
} else {
 // no cookie
}

!! will turn the falsy values to false. Bear in mind that this will turn 0 to false!