Basic HTTP cookie parser and serializer for HTTP servers.
This is a Node.js module available through the
npm registry. Installation is done using the
npm install
command:
$ npm install cookie
var cookie = require('cookie');
Parse an HTTP Cookie
header string and returning an object of all cookie name-value pairs.
The str
argument is the string representing a Cookie
header value and options
is an
optional object containing additional parsing options.
var cookies = cookie.parse('foo=bar; equation=E%3Dmc%5E2');
// { foo: 'bar', equation: 'E=mc^2' }
cookie.parse
accepts these properties in the options object.
Specifies a function that will be used to decode a cookie's value. Since the value of a cookie has a limited character set (and must be a simple string), this function can be used to decode a previously-encoded cookie value into a JavaScript string or other object.
The default function is the global decodeURIComponent
, which will decode any URL-encoded
sequences into their byte representations.
note if an error is thrown from this function, the original, non-decoded cookie value will be returned as the cookie's value.
Serialize a cookie name-value pair into a Set-Cookie
header string. The name
argument is the
name for the cookie, the value
argument is the value to set the cookie to, and the options
argument is an optional object containing additional serialization options.
var setCookie = cookie.serialize('foo', 'bar');
// foo=bar
cookie.serialize
accepts these properties in the options object.
Specifies the value for the Domain
Set-Cookie
attribute. By default, no
domain is set, and most clients will consider the cookie to apply to only the current domain.
Specifies a function that will be used to encode a cookie's value. Since value of a cookie has a limited character set (and must be a simple string), this function can be used to encode a value into a string suited for a cookie's value.
The default function is the global encodeURIComponent
, which will encode a JavaScript string
into UTF-8 byte sequences and then URL-encode any that fall outside of the cookie range.
Specifies the Date
object to be the value for the Expires
Set-Cookie
attribute.
By default, no expiration is set, and most clients will consider this a "non-persistent cookie" and
will delete it on a condition like exiting a web browser application.
note the cookie storage model specification states that if both expires
and
maxAge
are set, then maxAge
takes precedence, but it is possible not all clients by obey this,
so if both are set, they should point to the same date and time.
Specifies the boolean
value for the HttpOnly
Set-Cookie
attribute. When truthy,
the HttpOnly
attribute is set, otherwise it is not. By default, the HttpOnly
attribute is not set.
note be careful when setting this to true
, as compliant clients will not allow client-side
JavaScript to see the cookie in document.cookie
.
Specifies the number
(in seconds) to be the value for the Max-Age
Set-Cookie
attribute.
The given number will be converted to an integer by rounding down. By default, no maximum age is set.
note the cookie storage model specification states that if both expires
and
maxAge
are set, then maxAge
takes precedence, but it is possible not all clients by obey this,
so if both are set, they should point to the same date and time.
Specifies the boolean
value for the Partitioned
Set-Cookie
attribute. When truthy, the Partitioned
attribute is set, otherwise it is not. By default, the
Partitioned
attribute is not set.
note This is an attribute that has not yet been fully standardized, and may change in the future. This also means many clients may ignore this attribute until they understand it.
More information about can be found in the proposal.
Specifies the value for the Path
Set-Cookie
attribute. By default, the path
is considered the "default path".
Specifies the string
to be the value for the Priority
Set-Cookie
attribute.
-
'low'
will set thePriority
attribute toLow
. -
'medium'
will set thePriority
attribute toMedium
, the default priority when not set. -
'high'
will set thePriority
attribute toHigh
.
More information about the different priority levels can be found in the specification.
note This is an attribute that has not yet been fully standardized, and may change in the future. This also means many clients may ignore this attribute until they understand it.
Specifies the boolean
or string
to be the value for the SameSite
Set-Cookie
attribute.
-
true
will set theSameSite
attribute toStrict
for strict same site enforcement. -
false
will not set theSameSite
attribute. -
'lax'
will set theSameSite
attribute toLax
for lax same site enforcement. -
'none'
will set theSameSite
attribute toNone
for an explicit cross-site cookie. -
'strict'
will set theSameSite
attribute toStrict
for strict same site enforcement.
More information about the different enforcement levels can be found in the specification.
note This is an attribute that has not yet been fully standardized, and may change in the future. This also means many clients may ignore this attribute until they understand it.
Specifies the boolean
value for the Secure
Set-Cookie
attribute. When truthy,
the Secure
attribute is set, otherwise it is not. By default, the Secure
attribute is not set.
note be careful when setting this to true
, as compliant clients will not send the cookie back to
the server in the future if the browser does not have an HTTPS connection.
The following example uses this module in conjunction with the Node.js core HTTP server to prompt a user for their name and display it back on future visits.
var cookie = require('cookie');
var escapeHtml = require('escape-html');
var http = require('http');
var url = require('url');
function onRequest(req, res) {
// Parse the query string
var query = url.parse(req.url, true, true).query;
if (query && query.name) {
// Set a new cookie with the name
res.setHeader('Set-Cookie', cookie.serialize('name', String(query.name), {
httpOnly: true,
maxAge: 60 * 60 * 24 * 7 // 1 week
}));
// Redirect back after setting cookie
res.statusCode = 302;
res.setHeader('Location', req.headers.referer || '/');
res.end();
return;
}
// Parse the cookies on the request
var cookies = cookie.parse(req.headers.cookie || '');
// Get the visitor name set in the cookie
var name = cookies.name;
res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/html; charset=UTF-8');
if (name) {
res.write('<p>Welcome back, <b>' + escapeHtml(name) + '</b>!</p>');
} else {
res.write('<p>Hello, new visitor!</p>');
}
res.write('<form method="GET">');
res.write('<input placeholder="enter your name" name="name"> <input type="submit" value="Set Name">');
res.end('</form>');
}
http.createServer(onRequest).listen(3000);
$ npm test
$ npm run bench
> cookie@0.5.0 bench
> node benchmark/index.js
node@18.18.2
acorn@8.10.0
ada@2.6.0
ares@1.19.1
brotli@1.0.9
cldr@43.1
icu@73.2
llhttp@6.0.11
modules@108
napi@9
nghttp2@1.57.0
nghttp3@0.7.0
ngtcp2@0.8.1
openssl@3.0.10+quic
simdutf@3.2.14
tz@2023c
undici@5.26.3
unicode@15.0
uv@1.44.2
uvwasi@0.0.18
v8@10.2.154.26-node.26
zlib@1.2.13.1-motley
> node benchmark/parse-top.js
cookie.parse - top sites
14 tests completed.
parse accounts.google.com x 2,588,913 ops/sec ±0.74% (186 runs sampled)
parse apple.com x 2,370,002 ops/sec ±0.69% (186 runs sampled)
parse cloudflare.com x 2,213,102 ops/sec ±0.88% (188 runs sampled)
parse docs.google.com x 2,194,157 ops/sec ±1.03% (184 runs sampled)
parse drive.google.com x 2,265,084 ops/sec ±0.79% (187 runs sampled)
parse en.wikipedia.org x 457,099 ops/sec ±0.81% (186 runs sampled)
parse linkedin.com x 504,407 ops/sec ±0.89% (186 runs sampled)
parse maps.google.com x 1,230,959 ops/sec ±0.98% (186 runs sampled)
parse microsoft.com x 926,294 ops/sec ±0.88% (184 runs sampled)
parse play.google.com x 2,311,338 ops/sec ±0.83% (185 runs sampled)
parse support.google.com x 1,508,850 ops/sec ±0.86% (186 runs sampled)
parse www.google.com x 1,022,582 ops/sec ±1.32% (182 runs sampled)
parse youtu.be x 332,136 ops/sec ±1.02% (185 runs sampled)
parse youtube.com x 323,833 ops/sec ±0.77% (183 runs sampled)
> node benchmark/parse.js
cookie.parse - generic
6 tests completed.
simple x 3,214,032 ops/sec ±1.61% (183 runs sampled)
decode x 587,237 ops/sec ±1.16% (187 runs sampled)
unquote x 2,954,618 ops/sec ±1.35% (183 runs sampled)
duplicates x 857,008 ops/sec ±0.89% (187 runs sampled)
10 cookies x 292,133 ops/sec ±0.89% (187 runs sampled)
100 cookies x 22,610 ops/sec ±0.68% (187 runs sampled)