The http.cookies module defines classes for abstracting the concept of cookies, an HTTP state management mechanism. It supports both simple string-only cookies, and provides an abstraction for having any serializable data-type as cookie value.
The module formerly strictly applied the parsing rules described in the RFC 2109 and RFC 2068 specifications. It has since been discovered that MSIE 3.0x doesn’t follow the character rules outlined in those specs. As a result, the parsing rules used are a bit less strict.
Note
On encountering an invalid cookie, CookieError is raised, so if your cookie data comes from a browser you should always prepare for invalid data and catch CookieError on parsing.
This class is a dictionary-like object whose keys are strings and whose values are Morsel instances. Note that upon setting a key to a value, the value is first converted to a Morsel containing the key and the value.
If input is given, it is passed to the load() method.
See also
Return an encoded value. val can be any type, but return value must be a string. This method does nothing in BaseCookie — it exists so it can be overridden
In general, it should be the case that value_encode() and value_decode() are inverses on the range of value_decode.
Return an embeddable JavaScript snippet, which, if run on a browser which supports JavaScript, will act the same as if the HTTP headers was sent.
The meaning for attrs is the same as in output().
If rawdata is a string, parse it as an HTTP_COOKIE and add the values found there as Morsels. If it is a dictionary, it is equivalent to:
for k, v in rawdata.items():
cookie[k] = v
Abstract a key/value pair, which has some RFC 2109 attributes.
Morsels are dictionary-like objects, whose set of keys is constant — the valid RFC 2109 attributes, which are
The attribute httponly specifies that the cookie is only transfered in HTTP requests, and is not accessible through JavaScript. This is intended to mitigate some forms of cross-site scripting.
The keys are case-insensitive.
Return an embeddable JavaScript snippet, which, if run on a browser which supports JavaScript, will act the same as if the HTTP header was sent.
The meaning for attrs is the same as in output().
Return a string representing the Morsel, without any surrounding HTTP or JavaScript.
The meaning for attrs is the same as in output().
The following example demonstrates how to use the http.cookies module.
>>> from http import cookies
>>> C = cookies.SimpleCookie()
>>> C["fig"] = "newton"
>>> C["sugar"] = "wafer"
>>> print(C) # generate HTTP headers
Set-Cookie: fig=newton
Set-Cookie: sugar=wafer
>>> print(C.output()) # same thing
Set-Cookie: fig=newton
Set-Cookie: sugar=wafer
>>> C = cookies.SimpleCookie()
>>> C["rocky"] = "road"
>>> C["rocky"]["path"] = "/cookie"
>>> print(C.output(header="Cookie:"))
Cookie: rocky=road; Path=/cookie
>>> print(C.output(attrs=[], header="Cookie:"))
Cookie: rocky=road
>>> C = cookies.SimpleCookie()
>>> C.load("chips=ahoy; vienna=finger") # load from a string (HTTP header)
>>> print(C)
Set-Cookie: chips=ahoy
Set-Cookie: vienna=finger
>>> C = cookies.SimpleCookie()
>>> C.load('keebler="E=everybody; L=\\"Loves\\"; fudge=\\012;";')
>>> print(C)
Set-Cookie: keebler="E=everybody; L=\"Loves\"; fudge=\012;"
>>> C = cookies.SimpleCookie()
>>> C["oreo"] = "doublestuff"
>>> C["oreo"]["path"] = "/"
>>> print(C)
Set-Cookie: oreo=doublestuff; Path=/
>>> C = cookies.SimpleCookie()
>>> C["twix"] = "none for you"
>>> C["twix"].value
'none for you'
>>> C = cookies.SimpleCookie()
>>> C["number"] = 7 # equivalent to C["number"] = str(7)
>>> C["string"] = "seven"
>>> C["number"].value
'7'
>>> C["string"].value
'seven'
>>> print(C)
Set-Cookie: number=7
Set-Cookie: string=seven