Cokies
- Text files with small bits of information stored on a browser.
- Browser stores this information locally in the form of
a cookie and sends it back to the same server during later requests.
What Are they Used for?
- Among other things this helps identify who the user making requests to the server is
- Potentially other things like settings, preferences, etc. can be stored as well.
- Session management in particular is where they get used.
- A site will generate a unique ID for each visitor and
store that ID number on each user's machine in a cookie file.
- This could be part of a shopping cart on an e-commerce site where
the cookie might store product numbers and quantities.
- Ensures that the user is logged in the whole session or untill the cookie expires.
Lifespan of a Cookie
- Session cookies are typically deletd when the session ends.
- More permanent cookies have their lifespan set on a defined expiration date & time.
- Once that predetermined time passes,
they are deleted from browser and the server will no longer accept it.
- To forcefully remove a cookie, or pop'ing it you should set the cookie attribute
max_age to 0.
- In flask this gets managed by using the
make_response & set_cookie function.
@app.route('/delete-cookie/')
def delete_cookie():
res = make_response('Your desired message')
res.set_cookie('foo', 'bar', max_age=0)
return res
Cookies in various Web Frameworks
Flask
See Cookies in Flask for a detailed explanation of how to do this in flask
References