HTTP::CookieJar(3) A minimalist HTTP user agent cookie jar

VERSION

version 0.008

SYNOPSIS


use HTTP::CookieJar;
my $jar = HTTP::CookieJar->new;
# add cookie received from a request
$jar->add( "http://www.example.com/", "CUSTOMER=WILE_E_COYOTE; Path=/; Domain=example.com" );
# extract cookie header for a given request
my $cookie = $jar->cookie_header( "http://www.example.com/" );

DESCRIPTION

This module implements a minimalist HTTP user agent cookie jar in conformance with RFC 6265 <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265>.

Unlike the commonly used HTTP::Cookies module, this module does not require use of HTTP::Request and HTTP::Response objects. An LWP-compatible adapter is available as HTTP::CookieJar::LWP.

CONSTRUCTORS

new

    my $jar = HTTP::CookieJar->new;

Return a new, empty cookie jar

METHODS

add

    $jar->add(
        "http://www.example.com/", "lang=en-US; Path=/; Domain=example.com"
    );

Given a request URL and a "Set-Cookie" header string, attempts to adds the cookie to the jar. If the cookie is expired, instead it deletes any matching cookie from the jar. A "Max-Age" attribute will be converted to an absolute "Expires" attribute.

It will throw an exception if the request URL is missing or invalid. Returns true if successful cookie processing or undef/empty-list on failure.

clear

    $jar->clear

Empties the cookie jar.

cookies_for

    my @cookies = $jar->cookies_for("http://www.example.com/foo/bar");

Given a request URL, returns a list of hash references representing cookies that should be sent. The hash references are copies --- changing values will not change the cookies in the jar.

Cookies set "secure" will only be returned if the request scheme is "https". Expired cookies will not be returned.

Keys of a cookie hash reference might include:

  • name --- the name of the cookie
  • value --- the value of the cookie
  • domain --- the domain name to which the cookie applies
  • path --- the path to which the cookie applies
  • expires --- if present, when the cookie expires in epoch seconds
  • secure --- if present, the cookie was set "Secure"
  • httponly --- if present, the cookie was set "HttpOnly"
  • hostonly --- if present, the cookie may only be used with the domain as a host
  • creation_time --- epoch seconds since the cookie was first stored
  • last_access_time --- epoch seconds since the cookie was last stored

Keep in mind that "httponly" means it should only be used in requests and not made available via Javascript, etc. This is pretty meaningless for Perl user agents.

Generally, user agents should use the "cookie_header" method instead.

It will throw an exception if the request URL is missing or invalid.

cookie_header

    my $header = $jar->cookie_header("http://www.example.com/foo/bar");

Given a request URL, returns a correctly-formatted string with all relevant cookies for the request. This string is ready to be used in a "Cookie" header in an HTTP request. E.g.: 

    SID=31d4d96e407aad42; lang=en-US

It follows the same exclusion rules as "cookies_for".

If the request is invalid or no cookies apply, it will return an empty string.

dump_cookies

    my @list = $jar->dump_cookies;
    my @list = $jar->dump_cookies( { persistent => 1 } );

Returns a list of raw cookies in string form. The strings resemble what would be received from "Set-Cookie" headers, but with additional internal fields. The list is only intended for use with "load_cookies" to allow cookie jar persistence.

If a hash reference with a true "persistent" key is given as an argument, cookies without an "Expires" time (i.e. ``session cookies'') will be omitted.

Here is a trivial example of saving a cookie jar file with Path::Tiny: 

    path("jar.txt")->spew( join "\n", $jar->dump_cookies );

load_cookies

    $jar->load_cookies( @cookies );

Given a list of cookie strings from "dump_cookies", it adds them to the cookie jar. Cookies added in this way will supersede any existing cookies with similar domain, path and name.

It returns the jar object for convenience when loading a new object: 

    my $jar = HTTP::CookieJar->new->load_cookies( @cookies );

Here is a trivial example of loading a cookie jar file with Path::Tiny: 

    my $jar = HTTP::CookieJar->new->load_cookies(
        path("jar.txt")->lines
    );

LIMITATIONS AND CAVEATS

RFC 6265 vs prior standards

This modules adheres as closely as possible to the user-agent rules of RFC 6265. Therefore, it does not handle nor generate "Set-Cookie2" and "Cookie2" headers, implement ".local" suffixes, or do path/domain matching in accord with prior RFC's.

Internationalized domain names

Internationalized domain names given in requests must be properly encoded in ASCII form.

Public suffixes

If Mozilla::PublicSuffix is installed, cookie domains will be checked against the public suffix list. Public suffix cookies are only allowed as host-only cookies.

Third-party cookies

According to RFC 6265, a cookie may be accepted only if has no "Domain" attribute (in which case it is ``host-only'') or if the "Domain" attribute is a suffix of the request URL. This effectively prohibits Site A from setting a cookie for unrelated Site B, which is one potential third-party cookie vector.

SUPPORT

Bugs / Feature Requests

Please report any bugs or feature requests through the issue tracker at <https://github.com/dagolden/HTTP-CookieJar/issues>. You will be notified automatically of any progress on your issue.

Source Code

This is open source software. The code repository is available for public review and contribution under the terms of the license.

<https://github.com/dagolden/HTTP-CookieJar> 

  git clone https://github.com/dagolden/HTTP-CookieJar.git

AUTHOR

David Golden <[email protected]>

CONTRIBUTORS

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is Copyright (c) 2013 by David Golden.

This is free software, licensed under: 

  The Apache License, Version 2.0, January 2004

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