# NAME

HTTP::Cookies - HTTP cookie jars

# VERSION

version 6.09

# SYNOPSIS

   use HTTP::Cookies;
   $cookie_jar = HTTP::Cookies->new(
     file => "$ENV{'HOME'}/lwp_cookies.dat",
     autosave => 1,
   );

   use LWP;
   my $browser = LWP::UserAgent->new;
   $browser->cookie_jar($cookie_jar);

Or for an empty and temporary cookie jar:

   use LWP;
   my $browser = LWP::UserAgent->new;
   $browser->cookie_jar( {} );

# DESCRIPTION

This class is for objects that represent a "cookie jar" -- that is, a
database of all the HTTP cookies that a given LWP::UserAgent object
knows about.

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 refer to
[Cookie Spec](http://curl.haxx.se/rfc/cookie_spec.html) and
[Cookie Central](http://www.cookiecentral.com).  This module also implements the
new style cookies described in [RFC 2965](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2965).
The two variants of cookies are supposed to be able to coexist happily.

Instances of the class _HTTP::Cookies_ are able to store a collection
of Set-Cookie2: and Set-Cookie: headers and are able to use this
information to initialize Cookie-headers in _HTTP::Request_ objects.
The state of a _HTTP::Cookies_ object can be saved in and restored from
files.

# LIMITATIONS

This module does not support [Public Suffix](https://publicsuffix.org/) encouraged by a more recent standard, [RFC
6265](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265).

This module's shortcomings mean that a malicious Web site can set
cookies to track your user agent across all sites under a top level
domain.  See `t/publicsuffix.t` in this module's distribution for
details.

[HTTP::CookieJar::LWP](https://metacpan.org/pod/HTTP%3A%3ACookieJar%3A%3ALWP) supports Public Suffix, but only provides a
limited subset of this module's functionality and [does not
support](https://metacpan.org/pod/HTTP%3A%3ACookieJar#LIMITATIONS-AND-CAVEATS) standards older than
_RFC 6265_.

# 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 cookies from and save cookies to
       autosave:        save during destruction (bool)
       ignore_discard:  save even cookies that are requested to be discarded (bool)
       hide_cookie2:    do not add Cookie2 header to requests

   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->get\_cookies( $url\_or\_domain )
- $cookie\_jar->get\_cookies( $url\_or\_domain, $cookie\_key,... )

   Returns a hash of the cookies that applies to the given URL. If a
   domainname is given as argument, then a prefix of "https://" is assumed.

   If one or more $cookie\_key parameters are provided return the given values,
   or `undef` if the cookie isn't available.

- $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.  Any of these headers that are found 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 of $maxage <= 0 will delete this cookie.  The $version argument
   sets the version of the cookie; the default value is 0 ( original Netscape
   spec ).  Setting $version to another value indicates the RFC to which the
   cookie conforms (e.g. version 1 for RFC 2109).  %rest defines various other
   attributes like "Comment" and "CommentURL".

- $cookie\_jar->save
- $cookie\_jar->save( $file )
- $cookie\_jar->save( file => $file, ignore\_discard => $ignore\_discard )

   This method file saves 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 $ignore\_discard value is true (or not specified,
   but attribute _ignore\_discard_ was set at cookie jar construction),
   then we will even save cookies that are marked to be discarded.

   The default is to save a sequence of "Set-Cookie3" lines.
   "Set-Cookie3" is a proprietary LWP format, not known to be compatible
   with any browser.  The _HTTP::Cookies::Netscape_ sub-class can
   be used to save in a format compatible with Netscape.

- $cookie\_jar->load
- $cookie\_jar->load( $file )

   This method reads the cookies from the file and adds them to the
   $cookie\_jar.  The file must be in the format written by the save()
   method.

- $cookie\_jar->revert

   This method empties the $cookie\_jar and re-loads the $cookie\_jar
   from the last save file.

- $cookie\_jar->clear
- $cookie\_jar->clear( $domain )
- $cookie\_jar->clear( $domain, $path )
- $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 are removed.  If
   given three arguments, then the cookie with the specified key, path
   and domain is removed.

- $cookie\_jar->clear\_temporary\_cookies

   Discard all temporary cookies. Scans for all cookies in the jar
   with either no expire field or a true `discard` flag. To be
   called when the user agent shuts down according to RFC 2965.

- $cookie\_jar->scan( \\&callback )

   The argument is a subroutine that will be invoked for each cookie
   stored in 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
- $cookie\_jar->as\_string( $skip\_discardables )

   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 $skip\_discardables is TRUE, it will not return lines for
   cookies with the _Discard_ attribute.

# SEE ALSO

[HTTP::Cookies::Netscape](https://metacpan.org/pod/HTTP%3A%3ACookies%3A%3ANetscape), [HTTP::Cookies::Microsoft](https://metacpan.org/pod/HTTP%3A%3ACookies%3A%3AMicrosoft)

# AUTHOR

Gisle Aas <[email protected]>

# COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2002 by Gisle Aas.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

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