How to implement cookie support in ruby net/http? - ruby

Question

I'd like to add cookie support to a ruby class utilizing net/http to browse the web. Cookies have to be stored in a file to survive after the script has ended. Of course I can read the specs and write some kind of a handler, use some cookie.txt format and so on, but it seems to mean reinventing the wheel. Is there a better way to accomplish this task? Maybe some kind of a cooie jar class to take care of cookies?

Answer 1

The accepted answer will not work if your server returns and expects multiple cookies. This could happen, for example, if the server returns a set of FedAuth[n] cookies. If this affects you, you might want to look into using something along the lines of the following instead:
http = Net::HTTP.new('https://example.com', 443)
http.use_ssl = true
path1 = '/index.html'
path2 = '/index2.html'
# make a request to get the server's cookies
response = http.get(path)
if (response.code == '200')
all_cookies = response.get_fields('set-cookie')
cookies_array = Array.new
all_cookies.each { | cookie |
cookies_array.push(cookie.split('; ')[0])
}
cookies = cookies_array.join('; ')
# now make a request using the cookies
response = http.get(path2, { 'Cookie' => cookies })
end

Answer 2

Taken from DZone Snippets
http = Net::HTTP.new('profil.wp.pl', 443)
http.use_ssl = true
path = '/login.html'
# GET request -> so the host can set his cookies
resp, data = http.get(path, nil)
cookie = resp.response['set-cookie'].split('; ')[0]
# POST request -> logging in
data = 'serwis=wp.pl&url=profil.html&tryLogin=1&countTest=1&logowaniessl=1&login_username=blah&login_password=blah'
headers = {
'Cookie' => cookie,
'Referer' => 'http://profil.wp.pl/login.html',
'Content-Type' => 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
}
resp, data = http.post(path, data, headers)
# Output on the screen -> we should get either a 302 redirect (after a successful login) or an error page
puts 'Code = ' + resp.code
puts 'Message = ' + resp.message
resp.each {|key, val| puts key + ' = ' + val}
puts data
update
#To save the cookies, you can use PStore
cookies = PStore.new("cookies.pstore")
# Save the cookie
cookies.transaction do
cookies[:some_identifier] = cookie
end
# Retrieve the cookie back
cookies.transaction do
cookie = cookies[:some_identifier]
end

Answer 3

The accepted answer does not work. You need to access the internal representation of the response header where the multiple set-cookie values are stores separately and then remove everything after the first semicolon from these string and join them together. Here is code that works
r = http.get(path)
cookie = {'Cookie'=>r.to_hash['set-cookie'].collect{|ea|ea[/^.*?;/]}.join}
r = http.get(next_path,cookie)

Answer 4

Use http-cookie, which implements RFC-compliant parsing and rendering, plus a jar.
A crude example that happens to follow a redirect post-login:
require 'uri'
require 'net/http'
require 'http-cookie'
uri = URI('...')
jar = HTTP::CookieJar.new
Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, use_ssl: uri.scheme == 'https') do |http|
req = Net::HTTP::Post.new uri
req.form_data = { ... }
res = http.request req
res.get_fields('Set-Cookie').each do |value|
jar.parse(value, req.uri)
end
fail unless res.code == '302'
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri + res['Location'])
req['Cookie'] = HTTP::Cookie.cookie_value(jar.cookies(uri))
res = http.request req
end
Why do this? Because the answers above are incredibly insufficient and flat out don't work in many RFC-compliant scenarios (happened to me), so relying on the very lib implementing just what's needed is infinitely more robust if you want to handle more than one particular case.

Answer 5

I've used Curb and Mechanize for a similar project.
Just enable cookies support and save the cookies to a temp cookiejar...
If your using net/http or packages without cookie support built in, you will need to write your own cookie handling.

Answer 6

You can send receive cookies using headers.
You can store the header in any persistence framework. Whether it is some sort of database, or files.