HttpCookie

HttpCookie

public HttpCookie (String name, 
                String value)

Constructs a cookie with a specified name and value.

The name must conform to RFC 2965. That means it can contain only ASCII alphanumeric characters and cannot contain commas, semicolons, or white space or begin with a $ character. The cookie's name cannot be changed after creation.

The value can be anything the server chooses to send. Its value is probably of interest only to the server. The cookie's value can be changed after creation with the setValue method.

By default, cookies are created according to the RFC 2965 cookie specification. The version can be changed with the setVersion method.

clone

public Object clone ()

Create and return a copy of this object.

domainMatches

public static boolean domainMatches (String domain, 
                String host)

The utility method to check whether a host name is in a domain or not.

This concept is described in the cookie specification. To understand the concept, some terminologies need to be defined first:

effective host name = hostname if host name contains dot
                  or = hostname.local if not

Host A's name domain-matches host B's if:

• their host name strings string-compare equal; or
• A is a HDN string and has the form NB, where N is a non-empty name string, B has the form .B', and B' is a HDN string. (So, x.y.com domain-matches .Y.com but not Y.com.)

A host isn't in a domain (RFC 2965 sec. 3.3.2) if:

• The value for the Domain attribute contains no embedded dots, and the value is not .local.
• The effective host name that derives from the request-host does not domain-match the Domain attribute.
• The request-host is a HDN (not IP address) and has the form HD, where D is the value of the Domain attribute, and H is a string that contains one or more dots.

Examples:

• A Set-Cookie2 from request-host y.x.foo.com for Domain=.foo.com would be rejected, because H is y.x and contains a dot.
• A Set-Cookie2 from request-host x.foo.com for Domain=.foo.com would be accepted.
• A Set-Cookie2 with Domain=.com or Domain=.com., will always be rejected, because there is no embedded dot.
• A Set-Cookie2 from request-host example for Domain=.local will be accepted, because the effective host name for the request- host is example.local, and example.local domain-matches .local.

equals

public boolean equals (Object obj)

Test the equality of two HTTP cookies.

The result is true only if two cookies come from same domain (case-insensitive), have same name (case-insensitive), and have same path (case-sensitive).

getComment

public String getComment ()

Returns the comment describing the purpose of this cookie, or null if the cookie has no comment.

getCommentURL

public String getCommentURL ()

Returns the comment URL describing the purpose of this cookie, or null if the cookie has no comment URL.

getDiscard

public boolean getDiscard ()

Returns the discard attribute of the cookie

getDomain

public String getDomain ()

Returns the domain name set for this cookie. The form of the domain name is set by RFC 2965.

getMaxAge

public long getMaxAge ()

Returns the maximum age of the cookie, specified in seconds. By default, -1 indicating the cookie will persist until browser shutdown.

getName

public String getName ()

Returns the name of the cookie. The name cannot be changed after creation.

getPath

public String getPath ()

Returns the path on the server to which the browser returns this cookie. The cookie is visible to all subpaths on the server.

getPortlist

public String getPortlist ()

Returns the port list attribute of the cookie

getSecure

public boolean getSecure ()

Returns true if sending this cookie should be restricted to a secure protocol, or false if the it can be sent using any protocol.

getValue

public String getValue ()

Returns the value of the cookie.

getVersion

public int getVersion ()

Returns the version of the protocol this cookie complies with. Version 1 complies with RFC 2965/2109, and version 0 complies with the original cookie specification drafted by Netscape. Cookies provided by a browser use and identify the browser's cookie version.

hasExpired

public boolean hasExpired ()

Reports whether this HTTP cookie has expired or not.

hashCode

public int hashCode ()

Returns the hash code of this HTTP cookie. The result is the sum of hash code value of three significant components of this cookie: name, domain, and path. That is, the hash code is the value of the expression:

getName().toLowerCase().hashCode()
+ getDomain().toLowerCase().hashCode()
+ getPath().hashCode()

isHttpOnly

public boolean isHttpOnly ()

Returns true if this cookie contains the HttpOnly attribute. This means that the cookie should not be accessible to scripting engines, like javascript.

parse

public static List<HttpCookie> parse (String header)

Constructs cookies from set-cookie or set-cookie2 header string. RFC 2965 section 3.2.2 set-cookie2 syntax indicates that one header line may contain more than one cookie definitions, so this is a static utility method instead of another constructor.

setComment

public void setComment (String purpose)

Specifies a comment that describes a cookie's purpose. The comment is useful if the browser presents the cookie to the user. Comments are not supported by Netscape Version 0 cookies.

setCommentURL

public void setCommentURL (String purpose)

Specifies a comment URL that describes a cookie's purpose. The comment URL is useful if the browser presents the cookie to the user. Comment URL is RFC 2965 only.

setDiscard

public void setDiscard (boolean discard)

Specify whether user agent should discard the cookie unconditionally. This is RFC 2965 only attribute.

setDomain

public void setDomain (String pattern)

Specifies the domain within which this cookie should be presented.

The form of the domain name is specified by RFC 2965. A domain name begins with a dot (.foo.com) and means that the cookie is visible to servers in a specified Domain Name System (DNS) zone (for example, www.foo.com, but not a.b.foo.com). By default, cookies are only returned to the server that sent them.

setHttpOnly

public void setHttpOnly (boolean httpOnly)

Indicates whether the cookie should be considered HTTP Only. If set to true it means the cookie should not be accessible to scripting engines like javascript.

setMaxAge

public void setMaxAge (long expiry)

Sets the maximum age of the cookie in seconds.

A positive value indicates that the cookie will expire after that many seconds have passed. Note that the value is the maximum age when the cookie will expire, not the cookie's current age.

A negative value means that the cookie is not stored persistently and will be deleted when the Web browser exits. A zero value causes the cookie to be deleted.

setPath

public void setPath (String uri)

Specifies a path for the cookie to which the client should return the cookie.

The cookie is visible to all the pages in the directory you specify, and all the pages in that directory's subdirectories. A cookie's path must include the servlet that set the cookie, for example, /catalog, which makes the cookie visible to all directories on the server under /catalog.

Consult RFC 2965 (available on the Internet) for more information on setting path names for cookies.

setPortlist

public void setPortlist (String ports)

Specify the portlist of the cookie, which restricts the port(s) to which a cookie may be sent back in a Cookie header.

setSecure

public void setSecure (boolean flag)

Indicates whether the cookie should only be sent using a secure protocol, such as HTTPS or SSL.

The default value is false.

setValue

public void setValue (String newValue)

Assigns a new value to a cookie after the cookie is created. If you use a binary value, you may want to use BASE64 encoding.

With Version 0 cookies, values should not contain white space, brackets, parentheses, equals signs, commas, double quotes, slashes, question marks, at signs, colons, and semicolons. Empty values may not behave the same way on all browsers.

setVersion

public void setVersion (int v)

Sets the version of the cookie protocol this cookie complies with. Version 0 complies with the original Netscape cookie specification. Version 1 complies with RFC 2965/2109.

toString

public String toString ()

Constructs a cookie header string representation of this cookie, which is in the format defined by corresponding cookie specification, but without the leading "Cookie:" token.