CURLOPT_COOKIE

Section: curl_easy_setopt options (3)
Updated: November 04, 2020
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NAME

CURLOPT_COOKIE - set contents of HTTP Cookie header

SYNOPSIS

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_COOKIE, char *cookie);

DESCRIPTION

Pass a pointer to a null-terminated string as parameter. It will be used to set a cookie in the HTTP request. The format of the string should be NAME=CONTENTS, where NAME is the cookie name and CONTENTS is what the cookie should contain.

If you need to set multiple cookies, set them all using a single option concatenated like this: "name1=content1; name2=content2;" etc.

This option sets the cookie header explicitly in the outgoing request(s). If multiple requests are done due to authentication, followed redirections or similar, they will all get this cookie passed on.

The cookies set by this option are separate from the internal cookie storage held by the cookie engine and will not be modified by it. If you enable the cookie engine and either you've imported a cookie of the same name (e.g. 'foo') or the server has set one, it will have no effect on the cookies you set here. A request to the server will send both the 'foo' held by the cookie engine and the 'foo' held by this option. To set a cookie that is instead held by the cookie engine and can be modified by the server use CURLOPT_COOKIELIST(3).

Using this option multiple times will only make the latest string override the previous ones.

This option will not enable the cookie engine. Use CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE(3) or CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR(3) to enable parsing and sending cookies automatically.

The application does not have to keep the string around after setting this option.

DEFAULT

NULL, no cookies

PROTOCOLS

HTTP

EXAMPLE

CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
if(curl) {
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com");

  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_COOKIE, "tool=curl; fun=yes;");

  curl_easy_perform(curl);
}

AVAILABILITY

If HTTP is enabled

RETURN VALUE

Returns CURLE_OK if HTTP is enabled, CURLE_UNKNOWN_OPTION if not, or CURLE_OUT_OF_MEMORY if there was insufficient heap space.