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CGI::Cookie(3)	 Perl Programmers Reference Guide  CGI::Cookie(3)

NAME
       CGI::Cookie - Interface to Netscape Cookies

SYNOPSIS
	   use CGI qw/:standard/;
	   use CGI::Cookie;

	   # Create new cookies and send them
	   $cookie1 = new CGI::Cookie(-name=>'ID',-value=>123456);
	   $cookie2 = new CGI::Cookie(-name=>'preferences',
				      -value=>{ font => Helvetica,
						size => 12 }
				      );
	   print header(-cookie=>[$cookie1,$cookie2]);

	   # fetch existing cookies
	   %cookies = fetch CGI::Cookie;
	   $id = $cookies{'ID'}->value;

	   # create cookies returned from an external source
	   %cookies = parse CGI::Cookie($ENV{COOKIE});

DESCRIPTION
       CGI::Cookie is an interface to Netscape (HTTP/1.1)
       cookies, an innovation that allows Web servers to store
       persistent information on the browser's side of the
       connection.  Although CGI::Cookie is intended to be used
       in conjunction with CGI.pm (and is in fact used by it
       internally), you can use this module independently.

       For full information on cookies see

	       http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/rfc2109.txt

USING CGI::Cookie
       CGI::Cookie is object oriented.	Each cookie object has a
       name and a value.  The name is any scalar value.	 The
       value is any scalar or array value (associative arrays are
       also allowed).  Cookies also have several optional
       attributes, including:

       1. expiration date
	   The expiration date tells the browser how long to hang
	   on to the cookie.  If the cookie specifies an
	   expiration date in the future, the browser will store
	   the cookie information in a disk file and return it to
	   the server every time the user reconnects (until the
	   expiration date is reached).	 If the cookie species an
	   expiration date in the past, the browser will remove
	   the cookie from the disk file.  If the expiration date
	   is not specified, the cookie will persist only until
	   the user quits the browser.

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CGI::Cookie(3)	 Perl Programmers Reference Guide  CGI::Cookie(3)

       2. domain
	   This is a partial or complete domain name for which
	   the cookie is valid.	 The browser will return the
	   cookie to any host that matches the partial domain
	   name.  For example, if you specify a domain name of
	   ".capricorn.com", then Netscape will return the cookie
	   to Web servers running on any of the machines
	   "www.capricorn.com", "ftp.capricorn.com",
	   "feckless.capricorn.com", etc.  Domain names must
	   contain at least two periods to prevent attempts to
	   match on top level domains like ".edu".  If no domain
	   is specified, then the browser will only return the
	   cookie to servers on the host the cookie originated
	   from.

       3. path
	   If you provide a cookie path attribute, the browser
	   will check it against your script's URL before
	   returning the cookie.  For example, if you specify the
	   path "/cgi-bin", then the cookie will be returned to
	   each of the scripts "/cgi-bin/tally.pl", "/cgi-
	   bin/order.pl", and "/cgi-
	   bin/customer_service/complain.pl", but not to the
	   script "/cgi-private/site_admin.pl".	 By default, path
	   is set to "/", which causes the cookie to be sent to
	   any CGI script on your site.

       4. secure flag
	   If the "secure" attribute is set, the cookie will only
	   be sent to your script if the CGI request is occurring
	   on a secure channel, such as SSL.

       Creating New Cookies

	       $c = new CGI::Cookie(-name    =>	 'foo',
				    -value   =>	 'bar',
				    -expires =>	 '+3M',
				    -domain  =>	 '.capricorn.com',
				    -path    =>	 '/cgi-bin/database'
				    -secure  =>	 1
				   );

       Create cookies from scratch with the new method.	 The
       -name and -value parameters are required.  The name must
       be a scalar value.  The value can be a scalar, an array
       reference, or a hash reference.	(At some point in the
       future cookies will support one of the Perl object
       serialization protocols for full generality).

       -expires accepts any of the relative or absolute date
       formats recognized by CGI.pm, for example "+3M" for three
       months in the future.  See CGI.pm's documentation for
       details.

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CGI::Cookie(3)	 Perl Programmers Reference Guide  CGI::Cookie(3)

       -domain points to a domain name or to a fully qualified
       host name.  If not specified, the cookie will be returned
       only to the Web server that created it.

       -path points to a partial URL on the current server.  The
       cookie will be returned to all URLs beginning with the
       specified path.	If not specified, it defaults to '/',
       which returns the cookie to all pages at your site.

       -secure if set to a true value instructs the browser to
       return the cookie only when a cryptographic protocol is in
       use.

       Sending the Cookie to the Browser

       Within a CGI script you can send a cookie to the browser
       by creating one or more Set-Cookie: fields in the HTTP
       header.	Here is a typical sequence:

	 my $c = new CGI::Cookie(-name	  =>  'foo',
				 -value	  =>  ['bar','baz'],
				 -expires =>  '+3M');

	 print "Set-Cookie: $c\n";
	 print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";

       To send more than one cookie, create several Set-Cookie:
       fields.	Alternatively, you may concatenate the cookies
       together with "; " and send them in one field.

       If you are using CGI.pm, you send cookies by providing a
       -cookie argument to the header() method:

	 print header(-cookie=>$c);

       Mod_perl users can set cookies using the request object's
       header_out() method:

	 $r->header_out('Set-Cookie',$c);

       Internally, Cookie overloads the "" operator to call its
       as_string() method when incorporated into the HTTP header.
       as_string() turns the Cookie's internal representation
       into an RFC-compliant text representation.  You may call
       as_string() yourself if you prefer:

	 print "Set-Cookie: ",$c->as_string,"\n";

       Recovering Previous Cookies

	       %cookies = fetch CGI::Cookie;

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CGI::Cookie(3)	 Perl Programmers Reference Guide  CGI::Cookie(3)

       fetch returns an associative array consisting of all
       cookies returned by the browser.	 The keys of the array
       are the cookie names.  You can iterate through the cookies
       this way:

	       %cookies = fetch CGI::Cookie;
	       foreach (keys %cookies) {
		  do_something($cookies{$_});
	       }

       In a scalar context, fetch() returns a hash reference,
       which may be more efficient if you are manipulating
       multiple cookies.

       CGI.pm uses the URL escaping methods to save and restore
       reserved characters in its cookies.  If you are trying to
       retrieve a cookie set by a foreign server, this escaping
       method may trip you up.	Use raw_fetch() instead, which
       has the same semantics as fetch(), but performs no
       unescaping.

       You may also retrieve cookies that were stored in some
       external form using the parse() class method:

	      $COOKIES = `cat /usr/tmp/Cookie_stash`;
	      %cookies = parse CGI::Cookie($COOKIES);

       Manipulating Cookies

       Cookie objects have a series of accessor methods to get
       and set cookie attributes.  Each accessor has a similar
       syntax.	Called without arguments, the accessor returns
       the current value of the attribute.  Called with an
       argument, the accessor changes the attribute and returns
       its new value.

       name()
	   Get or set the cookie's name.  Example:

		   $name = $c->name;
		   $new_name = $c->name('fred');

       value()
	   Get or set the cookie's value.  Example:

		   $value = $c->value;
		   @new_value = $c->value(['a','b','c','d']);

	   value() is context sensitive.  In an array context it
	   will return the current value of the cookie as an
	   array.  In a scalar context it will return the first
	   value of a multivalued cookie.

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CGI::Cookie(3)	 Perl Programmers Reference Guide  CGI::Cookie(3)

       domain()
	   Get or set the cookie's domain.

       path()
	   Get or set the cookie's path.

       expires()
	   Get or set the cookie's expiration time.

AUTHOR INFORMATION
       Copyright 1997-1998, Lincoln D. Stein.  All rights
       reserved.

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

       Address bug reports and comments to: lstein@cshl.org

BUGS
       This section intentionally left blank.

SEE ALSO
       the CGI::Carp manpage, the CGI manpage

       =cut

16/Sep/1999	       perl 5.005, patch 03			5

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