lib::HTTP::Cookies
Section: User Contributed Perl Documentation
(3)
Updated: perl 5.004, patch 55
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NAME
HTTP::Cookies - Cookie storage and management
SYNOPSIS
use HTTP::Cookies;
$cookie_jar = HTTP::Cookies->new;
$cookie_jar->add_cookie_header($request);
$cookie_jar->extract_cookies($response);
DESCRIPTION
Cookies are a general mechanism which server side connections can use
to both store and retrieve information on the client side of the
connection. For more information about cookies referrer to
<URL:http://www.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html> and
<URL:http://www.cookiecentral.com/>. This module also implements the
new style cookies as described in draft-ietf-http-state-man-mec-03.txt.
The two variants of cookies can coexist happily.
Instances of the class HTTP::Cookies are able to store a collection
of Set-Cookie2: and Set-Cookie:-headers and is able to use this
information to initialize Cookie-headers in HTTP::Request objects.
The state of the HTTP::Cookies can be saved and restored from
files.
METHODS
The following methods are provided:
- $cookie_jar = HTTP::Cookies->new;
-
The constructor. Takes hash style parameters. The following
parameters are recognized:
file: name of the file to restore and save cookies to
autosave: should we save during destruction (bool)
ignore_discard: save even cookies that are requested to be discarded (bool)
Future parameters might include (not yet implemented):
max_cookies 300
max_cookies_per_domain 20
max_cookie_size 4096
no_cookies list of domain names that we never return cookies to
- $cookie_jar->add_cookie_header($request);
-
The add_cookie_header() method will set the appropriate Cookie:-header
for the HTTP::Request object given as argument. The $request must
have a valid url() attribute before this method is called.
- $cookie_jar->extract_cookies($response);
-
The extract_cookies() method will look for Set-Cookie: and
Set-Cookie2:-headers in the HTTP::Response object passed as
argument. If some of these headers are found they are used to update
the state of the $cookie_jar.
- $cookie_jar->set_cookie($version, $key, $val, $path, $domain, $port, $path_spec, $secure, $maxage, $discard, \%rest)
-
The set_cookie() method updates the state of the $cookie_jar. The
$key, $val, $domain, $port and $path arguments are strings. The
$path_spec, $secure, $discard arguments are boolean values. The $maxage
value is a number indicating number of seconds that this cookie will
live. A value <= 0 will delete this cookie. The %rest are a place
for various other attributes like ``Comment'' and ``CommentURL''.
- $cookie_jar->save( [$file] );
-
Calling this method file save the state of the $cookie_jar to a file.
The state can then be restored later using the load() method. If a
filename is not specified we will use the name specified during
construction. If the attribute ignore_discared is set, then we
will even save cookies that are marked to be discarded.
The default is to save a sequence of ``Set-Cookie3'' lines. The
``Set-Cookie3'' is a proprietary LWP format, not known to be compatible
with any other browser. The HTTP::Cookies::Netscape sub-class can
be used to save in a format compatible with Netscape.
- $cookie_jar->load( [$file] );
-
This method will read the cookies from the file and add them to the
$cookie_jar. The file must be in the format written by the save()
method.
- $cookie_jar->revert;
-
Will revert to the state of last save.
- $cookie_jar->clear( [$domain, [$path, [$key] ] ]);
-
Invoking this method without arguments will empty the whole
$cookie_jar. If given a single argument only cookies belonging to
that domain will be removed. If given two arguments, cookies
belonging to the specified path within that domain is removed. If
given three arguments, then the cookie with the specified key, path
and domain is removed.
- $cookie_jar->scan( \&callback );
-
The argument is a subroutine that will be invoked for each cookie
stored within the $cookie_jar. The subroutine will be invoked with
the following arguments:
0 version
1 key
2 val
3 path
4 domain
5 port
6 path_spec
7 secure
8 expires
9 discard
10 hash
- $cookie_jar->as_string( [$skip_discard] );
-
The as_string() method will return the state of the $cookie_jar
represented as a sequence of ``Set-Cookie3'' header lines separated by
``\n''. If given a argument that is TRUE, it will not return lines for
cookies with the Discard attribute.
SUB CLASSES
We also provide a subclass called HTTP::Cookies::Netscape which make
cookie loading and saving compatible with Netscape cookie files. You
should be able to have LWP share Netscape's cookies by constructing
your $cookie_jar like this:
$cookie_jar = HTTP::Cookies::Netscape->new(
File => "$ENV{HOME}/.netscape/cookies",
AutoSave => 1,
);
Please note that the Netscape cookie file format is not able to store
all the information available in the Set-Cookie2 headers, so you will
probably loose some information if you save using this format.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1997, Gisle Aas
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- METHODS
-
- SUB CLASSES
-
- COPYRIGHT
-
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Time: 23:58:15 GMT, February 15, 2023