CGI and Cookies [Resolved]

**The Hobo** · Feb 3rd, 2002, 11:20 PM

Can someone explain cookies when used with CGI to me? I want to be able to retrieve a cookie using CGI.

**JoshT** · Feb 4th, 2002, 12:08 PM

They are sent by HTTP Headers - the server sends a Set-Cookie: header and the Browser sends a Cookie: header. So they web server makes the cookie readable by your CGI script thru the HTTP_COOKIE environmental variable. Do a google search for "cookie " and your CGI language of choice for specific info on that language.

**The Hobo** · Feb 6th, 2002, 11:53 PM

I can't find anything usefull. Everything I find is too complex (full cookie management).

I just want a basic example of how to read a cookie named user@dogs or whatever.

scoutt · Feb 7th, 2002, 10:24 AM

is this what you want

http://bignosebird.com/notebook/cookies.shtml

**The Hobo** · Mar 2nd, 2002, 12:28 PM

scoutt (or anybody else), I need a little help. I plugged in that code into a file named cookies.pl, and tried it out with this, however, the cookies never save. What am I doing wrong?

Code:

$adminpass = "bah";

&breakup;
&checklogin;

sub checklogin {
    require "cookie.pl";
    #read cookies
    $cookie = &get_cookie("password");  

    if ($adminpass eq $cookie) {
        print "login with cookie sucessful.";
    } else {
        if ($in{'action'} eq 'login') {
            if ($in{'pass'} eq $adminpass) {
                print "Content-type: text/html \n\n";
                print "password correct";
                $cookie = &set_cookie("password",$adminpass,0,"/","www.mindlessdrone.com");
                print $cookie;
            } else {
                print "Content-type: text/html \n\n";
                print "password incorrect";
            }
        } else {
            print "Content-type: text/html \n\n";
            print qq~
            <html>
            <form action="login.cgi" method="post">
            <input type="hidden" name="action" value="login">
            <input type="text" name="pass">
            <input type="submit">
            </form>
            </html>
            ~;
        }
    }
}

#get input
sub breakup {
    read(STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
    if ($buffer eq '') {
        $buffer = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'};
    }
    
    my @pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
    
    foreach $pair (@pairs) {
    ($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);
        $value =~ tr/+/ /;
        $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
        $in{$name} .= $value;
    }
}

Sorry if the code is lengthy. Thanks for any help.

**JoshT** · Mar 4th, 2002, 12:08 PM

You need to "print" the Cookie with the HTTP headers, not as part of the HTML document - so before the two newlines that mark the end of the HTTP headers:

Code:

print <<HTTPHEADERS;
Set-Cookie: username=josht&language=english
Content-type: text/html

HTTPHEADERS

**The Hobo** · Mar 4th, 2002, 12:12 PM

I'll try this when I get home from school. One more quick question:

Code:

&set_cookie("password",$adminpass,0,"/","www.mindlessdrone.com");

If my script is located in www.mindlessdrone.com/cgi-bin, should my code be:

Code:

&set_cookie("password",$adminpass,0,"/cgi-bin/","www.mindlessdrone.com");

or...?

**JoshT** · Mar 4th, 2002, 12:15 PM

If the function works the way I think it works, the first snippet will cause the UA to return the cookie for any page in your site, where as the second snippet will cause the UA to return the cookie only for pages in or below the cgi-bin.

**The Hobo** · Mar 4th, 2002, 01:35 PM

Oh! I understand now. So basically I was printing the context type before I was setting the cookie which made it so the cookie was never set.

I needed to change it to:

Code:

$cookie = &set_cookie("password",$adminpass,0,"/","www.mindlessdrone.com");
print $cookie;
print "Content-type: text/html \n\n";
print "password correct";

It all makes sense now. Thanks a million, Josh

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