org.simpleframework.http
Class Cookie

java.lang.Object
  extended by org.simpleframework.http.Cookie

public class Cookie
extends java.lang.Object

This class is used to represent a generic cookie. This exposes the fields that a cookie can have. By default the version of the Cookie is set to 1. The version can be configured using the setVersion method. The domain, path, security, and expiry of the cookie can also be set using their respective set methods.

The toString method allows the Cookie to be converted back into text form. This text form converts the cookie according to the Set-Cookie header form. This is done so that a created Cookie instance can be converted to a string which can be used as a a HTTP header.

Author:
Niall Gallagher

Constructor Summary
protected Cookie()
          Constructor of the Cookie that does not need the name or value to be set.
  Cookie(java.lang.String name, java.lang.String value)
          Constructor of the Cookie that uses a default version of 1, which is used by RFC 2109.
  Cookie(java.lang.String name, java.lang.String value, boolean created)
          Constructor of the Cookie that uses a default version of 1, which is used by RFC 2109.
  Cookie(java.lang.String name, java.lang.String value, java.lang.String path)
          Constructor of the Cookie that uses a default version of 1, which is used by RFC 2109.
  Cookie(java.lang.String name, java.lang.String value, java.lang.String path, boolean created)
          Constructor of the Cookie that uses a default version of 1, which is used by RFC 2109.
 
Method Summary
 java.lang.String getDomain()
          This returns the domain for this cookie.
 int getExpiry()
          This returns the number of seconds a cookie lives for.
 java.lang.String getName()
          This returns the name for this cookie.
 java.lang.String getPath()
          This returns the path for this cookie.
 boolean getSecure()
          This determines whether the cookie is secure.
 java.lang.String getValue()
          This returns the value for this cookie.
 int getVersion()
          This returns the version for this cookie.
 boolean isNew()
          This is used to determine if the cookie is new.
 void setDomain(java.lang.String domain)
          This enables the domain for this Cookie to be set.
 void setExpiry(int expiry)
          This allows a lifetime to be specified for the cookie.
 void setPath(java.lang.String path)
          This is used to set the cookie path for this cookie.
 void setSecure(boolean secure)
          This is used to determine if the client browser should send this cookie over a secure protocol.
 void setValue(java.lang.String value)
          This enables the value of the cookie to be changed.
 void setVersion(int version)
          This enables the version of the Cookie to be set.
 java.lang.String toClientString()
          This will give the correct string value of this cookie.
 java.lang.String toString()
          The toString method converts the cookie to the Set-Cookie value.
 
Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object
clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, wait, wait, wait
 

Constructor Detail

Cookie

protected Cookie()
Constructor of the Cookie that does not need the name or value to be set. This allows the object to be extended without the need to supply the name and value of the cookie. If this constructor is used then the name and values retrieved should not be null values.


Cookie

public Cookie(java.lang.String name,
              java.lang.String value)
Constructor of the Cookie that uses a default version of 1, which is used by RFC 2109. This contains none of the optional attributes, such as domain and path. These optional attributes can be set using the set methods.

The name must conform to RFC 2109, which means that it can contain only ASCII alphanumeric characters and cannot have commas, white space, or semicolon characters.

Parameters:
name - this is the name of this cookie instance
value - this is the value of this cookie instance

Cookie

public Cookie(java.lang.String name,
              java.lang.String value,
              boolean created)
Constructor of the Cookie that uses a default version of 1, which is used by RFC 2109. This contains none of the optional attributes, such as domain and path. These optional attributes can be set using the set methods.

The name must conform to RFC 2109, which means that it can contain only ASCII alphanumeric characters and cannot have commas, white space, or semicolon characters.

Parameters:
name - this is the name of this cookie instance
value - this is the value of this cookie instance
created - this determines if the cookie is new

Cookie

public Cookie(java.lang.String name,
              java.lang.String value,
              java.lang.String path)
Constructor of the Cookie that uses a default version of 1, which is used by RFC 2109. This allows the path attribute to be specified for on construction. Other attributes can be set using the set methods provided.

The name must conform to RFC 2109, which means that it can contain only ASCII alphanumeric characters and cannot have commas, white space, or semicolon characters.

Parameters:
name - this is the name of this cookie instance
value - this is the value of this cookie instance
path - the path attribute of this cookie instance

Cookie

public Cookie(java.lang.String name,
              java.lang.String value,
              java.lang.String path,
              boolean created)
Constructor of the Cookie that uses a default version of 1, which is used by RFC 2109. This allows the path attribute to be specified for on construction. Other attributes can be set using the set methods provided.

The name must conform to RFC 2109, which means that it can contain only ASCII alphanumeric characters and cannot have commas, white space, or semicolon characters.

Parameters:
name - this is the name of this cookie instance
value - this is the value of this cookie instance
path - the path attribute of this cookie instance
created - this determines if the cookie is new
Method Detail

isNew

public boolean isNew()
This is used to determine if the cookie is new. A cookie is considered new if it has just been created on the server. A cookie is considered not new if it has been received by the client in a request. This allows the server to determine if the cookie needs to be delivered to the client.

Returns:
this returns true if the cookie was just created

getVersion

public int getVersion()
This returns the version for this cookie. The version is not optional and so will always return the version this cookie uses. If no version number is specified this will return a version of 1, to comply with RFC 2109.

Returns:
the version value from this cookie instance

setVersion

public void setVersion(int version)
This enables the version of the Cookie to be set. By default the version of the Cookie is set to 1. It is not advisable to set the version higher than 1, unless it is known that the client will accept it.

Some old browsers can only handle cookie version 0. This can be used to comply with the original Netscape cookie specification. Version 1 complies with RFC 2109.

Parameters:
version - this is the version number for the cookie

getName

public java.lang.String getName()
This returns the name for this cookie. The name and value attributes of a cookie define what the Cookie is for, these values will always be present. These are mandatory for both the Cookie and Set-Cookie headers.

Because the cookie may be stored by name, the cookie name cannot be modified after the creation of the cookie object.

Returns:
the name from this cookie instance object

getValue

public java.lang.String getValue()
This returns the value for this cookie. The name and value attributes of a cookie define what the Cookie is for, these values will always be present. These are mandatory for both the Cookie and Set-Cookie headers.

Returns:
the value from this cookie instance object

setValue

public void setValue(java.lang.String value)
This enables the value of the cookie to be changed. This can be set to any value the server wishes to send. Cookie values can contain space characters as they are transmitted in quotes. For example a value of some value is perfectly legal. However for maximum compatibility across the different plaforms such as PHP, JavaScript and others, quotations should be avoided. If quotations are required they must be added to the string. For example a quoted value could be created as "some value".

Parameters:
value - this is the new value of this cookie object

getSecure

public boolean getSecure()
This determines whether the cookie is secure. The cookie is secure if it has the "secure" token set, as defined by RFC 2109. If this token is set then the cookie is only sent over secure channels such as SSL and TLS and ensures that a third party cannot intercept and spoof the cookie.

Returns:
this returns true if the "secure" token is set

setSecure

public void setSecure(boolean secure)
This is used to determine if the client browser should send this cookie over a secure protocol. If this is true then the client browser should only send the cookie over secure channels such as SSL and TLS. This ensures that the value of the cookie cannot be intercepted by a third party.

Parameters:
secure - if true then the cookie should be protected

getExpiry

public int getExpiry()
This returns the number of seconds a cookie lives for. This determines how long the cookie will live on the client side. If the expiry is less than zero the cookie lifetime is the duration of the client browser session, if it is zero then the cookie will be deleted from the client browser.

Returns:
returns the duration in seconds the cookie lives

setExpiry

public void setExpiry(int expiry)
This allows a lifetime to be specified for the cookie. This will make use of the "max-age" token specified by RFC 2109 the specifies the number of seconds a browser should keep a cookie for. This is useful if the cookie is to be kept beyond the lifetime of the client session. If the valie of this is zero then this will remove the client cookie, if it is less than zero then the "max-age" field is ignored.

Parameters:
expiry - the duration in seconds the cookie lives

getPath

public java.lang.String getPath()
This returns the path for this cookie. The path is in both the Cookie and Set-Cookie headers and so may return null if there is no domain value. If the toString or toClientString is invoked the path will not be present if the path attribute is null.

Returns:
this returns the path value from this cookie

setPath

public void setPath(java.lang.String path)
This is used to set the cookie path for this cookie. This is set so that the cookie can specify the directories that the cookie is sent with. For example if the path attribute is set to /pub/bin, then requests for the resource http://hostname:port/pub/bin/README will be issued with this cookie. The cookie is issued for all resources in the path and all subdirectories.

Parameters:
path - this is the path value for this cookie object

getDomain

public java.lang.String getDomain()
This returns the domain for this cookie. The domain is in both the Cookie and Set-Cookie headers and so may return null if there is no domain value. If either the toString or toClientString is invoked the domain will not be present if this is null.

Returns:
this returns the domain value from this cookie

setDomain

public void setDomain(java.lang.String domain)
This enables the domain for this Cookie to be set. The form of the domain is specified by RFC 2109. The value can begin with a dot, like .host.com. This means that the cookie is visible within a specific DNS zone like www.host.com. By default this value is null which means it is sent back to its origin.

Parameters:
domain - this is the domain value for this cookie

toClientString

public java.lang.String toClientString()
This will give the correct string value of this cookie. This will generate the cookie text with only the values that were given with this cookie. If there are no optional attributes like $Path or $Domain these are left blank. This returns the encoding as it would be for the HTTP Cookie header.

Returns:
this returns the Cookie header encoding of this

toString

public java.lang.String toString()
The toString method converts the cookie to the Set-Cookie value. This can be used to send the HTTP header to a client browser. This uses a format that has been tested with various browsers. This is required as some browsers do not perform flexible parsing of the Set-Cookie value.

Netscape and IE-5.0 cant or wont handle Path it must be path also Netscape can not handle the path in quotations such as "/path" it must be /path. This value is never in quotations.

For maximum compatibility cookie values are not transmitted in quotations. This is done to ensure that platforms like PHP, JavaScript and various others that don't comply with RFC 2109 can transparently access the sent cookies.

Overrides:
toString in class java.lang.Object
Returns:
this returns a Set-Cookie encoding of the cookie