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| -rw-r--r-- | docs/HTTP-COOKIES | 97 |
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diff --git a/docs/HTTP-COOKIES b/docs/HTTP-COOKIES index 660c0b3d0..4fccb9d9e 100644 --- a/docs/HTTP-COOKIES +++ b/docs/HTTP-COOKIES @@ -1,45 +1,58 @@ - HTTP Cookies +Updated: July 3, 2012 (http://curl.haxx.se/docs/http-cookies.html) + _ _ ____ _ + ___| | | | _ \| | + / __| | | | |_) | | + | (__| |_| | _ <| |___ + \___|\___/|_| \_\_____| -Overview -======== -HTTP cookies are pieces of 'name=contents' snippets that a server tells the -client to hold and then the client sends back those the server on subsequent -requests to the same domains/paths for which the cookies were set. +HTTP Cookies -Cookies are either "session cookies" which typically are forgotten when the -session is over which is often translated to equal when browser quits, or the -cookies aren't session cookies they have expiration dates after which the -client will throw them away. + 1. Cookie overview + 2. Cookies saved to disk + 3. Cookies with curl the command line tool + 4. Cookies with libcurl + 5. Cookies with javascript -Cookies are set to the client with the Set-Cookie: header and are sent to -servers with the Cookie: header. +============================================================================== -For a very long time, the only spec explaining how to use cookies was the -original Netscape spec from 1994: http://curl.haxx.se/rfc/cookie_spec.html +1. Cookie overview -In 2011, RFC6265 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc6265.txt) was finally published -and details how cookies work within HTTP. + HTTP cookies are pieces of 'name=contents' snippets that a server tells the + client to hold and then the client sends back those the server on subsequent + requests to the same domains/paths for which the cookies were set. -cookies saved to disk -===================== + Cookies are either "session cookies" which typically are forgotten when the + session is over which is often translated to equal when browser quits, or + the cookies aren't session cookies they have expiration dates after which + the client will throw them away. -Netscape once created a file format for storing cookies on disk so that they -would survive browser restarts. curl adopted that file format to allow sharing -the cookies with browsers, only to see browsers move away from that -format. Modern browsers no longer use it, while curl still does. + Cookies are set to the client with the Set-Cookie: header and are sent to + servers with the Cookie: header. -The cookie file format stores one cookie per physical line in the file with a -bunch of associated meta data, each field separated with TAB. That file is -called the cookiejar in curl terminology. + For a very long time, the only spec explaining how to use cookies was the + original Netscape spec from 1994: http://curl.haxx.se/rfc/cookie_spec.html -cookies with curl the command line tool -======================================= + In 2011, RFC6265 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc6265.txt) was finally published + and details how cookies work within HTTP. -curl has a full cookie "engine" built in. If you just activate it, you can -have curl receive and send cookies exactly as mandated in the specs. +2. Cookies saved to disk -Command line options: + Netscape once created a file format for storing cookies on disk so that they + would survive browser restarts. curl adopted that file format to allow + sharing the cookies with browsers, only to see browsers move away from that + format. Modern browsers no longer use it, while curl still does. + + The cookie file format stores one cookie per physical line in the file with + a bunch of associated meta data, each field separated with TAB. That file is + called the cookiejar in curl terminology. + +3. Cookies with curl the command line tool + + curl has a full cookie "engine" built in. If you just activate it, you can + have curl receive and send cookies exactly as mandated in the specs. + + Command line options: -b, --cookie @@ -57,10 +70,9 @@ Command line options: tell curl to start the cookie engine and write cookies to the given file after the request(s) -cookies with libcurl -==================== +4. Cookies with libcurl -libcurl options: + libcurl options: CURLOPT_COOKIE @@ -89,16 +101,15 @@ libcurl options: Extract cookie information from the internal cookie storage as a linked list. -cookies with javascript -======================= +5. Cookies with javascript -These days a lot of the web is built up by javascript. The webbrowser loads -complete programs that render the page you see. These javascript programs can -also set and access cookies. + These days a lot of the web is built up by javascript. The webbrowser loads + complete programs that render the page you see. These javascript programs + can also set and access cookies. -Since curl and libcurl are plain HTTP clients without any knowledge of or -capability to handle javascript, such cookies will not be detected or used. + Since curl and libcurl are plain HTTP clients without any knowledge of or + capability to handle javascript, such cookies will not be detected or used. -Often, if you want to mimic what a browser does on such web sites, you can -record web browser HTTP traffic when using such a site and then repeat the -cookie operations using curl or libcurl. + Often, if you want to mimic what a browser does on such web sites, you can + record web browser HTTP traffic when using such a site and then repeat the + cookie operations using curl or libcurl. |