express.cookieSession() not saving data in the cookies - session

Question

I am using parse.com dynamic website to build a product website. I want to use session cookie to store some data in bowser session cookie. Here is my app.js
var express = require('express');
var parseExpressHttpsRedirect = require('parse-express-https-redirect');
var parseExpressCookieSession = require('parse-express-cookie-session');
var app = express();
// Global app configuration section
app.set('views', 'cloud/views');
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
app.use(parseExpressHttpsRedirect());
app.use(express.bodyParser());
app.use(express.cookieParser('YOUR_SIGNING_SECRET'));
app.use(parseExpressCookieSession({
cookie : {
maxAge : 3600000
}
}));
app.use(express.cookieSession());
app.use(app.router);
I have this method in app.js which is supposed to returned items added in the cart
function getProductsInCart(req) {
var productsInCart = req.session.productsInCart;
if(!productsInCart) {
return [];
}
return productsInCart;
}
And this is the method which adds a new product in the cart
app.get('/add-cart/*', function(req, res) {
var url = req.url;
var productId = url.split('/')[2];
var productsInCart = getProductsInCart(req);
productsInCart.push(productId)
req.session.productsInCart = productsInCart;
console.log("productsInCart: " + JSON.stringify(productsInCart));
});
The problem i am facing is that getProductsInCart method always returns an empty array, which means that the session is not storing the object in the cookie. This should be simple enough and i can't understand why its not working. Any pointer would be deeply appreciated.

Answer 1

There were two things i was doing wrong
using req.session instead of req.cookies
using cookies as a normal java script objects.
Here is the code that worked
app.get('/add-cart/*', function(req, res) {
var url = req.url;
var productId = url.split('/')[2];
var productsInCart = getProductsInCart(req);
console.log("productsInCart: " + JSON.stringify(productsInCart));
productsInCart.push(productId);
res.cookie('productsInCart', productsInCart, {
signed: false,
expires: new Date(Date.now() + 1000000)
});
res.send(req.cookies);
});
function getProductsInCart(req) {
var productsInCart = req.cookies.productsInCart;
if(!productsInCart) {
return [];
}
return productsInCart;
}