Jakarta Commons Cookbook

11.12. Working with Cookies

Problem

You need to work with a system that uses cookies to store state, and you need to be able to set cookies as well as keep track of cookies set by the server.

Solution

HttpClient handles cookies automatically. If you need to keep track of a cookie set by the server, simply use the same instance of HttpClient for each request in a session. If you need to set a cookie, create an instance of Cookie, and add it to HttpState. The following example sends a Cookie to the server:

               import java.io.IOException;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.Cookie;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpException;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethod;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.GetMethod;

HttpClient client = new HttpClient( );
    
System.out.println( "Making Request without Cookie: " );
makeRequest(client);
            
System.out.println( "Making Request with Cookie: " );
Cookie cookie = new Cookie(".discursive.com", "test_cookie", 
                           "hello", "/", null, false );
client.getState( ).addCookie( cookie );
makeRequest(client);

private 
               static 
               void makeRequest(HttpClient client)
    throws IOException, HttpException {
    String url = "http://www.discursive.com/cgi-bin/jccook/cookie_test.cgi";
    HttpMethod method = new GetMethod( url );
    client.executeMethod( method );
    String response = method.getResponseBodyAsString( );
    System.out.println( response );
    method.releaseConnection( );
    method.recycle( );
}

This example hits a CGI ...