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.
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
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.