CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR

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

CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR - file name to store cookies to

SYNOPSIS

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, char *filename);

DESCRIPTION

Pass a filename as char *, null-terminated. This will make libcurl write all internally known cookies to the specified file when curl_easy_cleanup(3) is called. If no cookies are known, no file will be created. Specify "-" as filename to instead have the cookies written to stdout. Using this option also enables cookies for this session, so if you for example follow a location it will make matching cookies get sent accordingly.

Note that libcurl doesn't read any cookies from the cookie jar. If you want to read cookies from a file, use CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE(3).

If the cookie jar file can't be created or written to (when the curl_easy_cleanup(3) is called), libcurl will not and cannot report an error for this. Using CURLOPT_VERBOSE(3) or CURLOPT_DEBUGFUNCTION(3) will get a warning to display, but that is the only visible feedback you get about this possibly lethal situation.

Since 7.43.0 cookies that were imported in the Set-Cookie format without a domain name are not exported by this option.

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

DEFAULT

NULL

PROTOCOLS

HTTP

EXAMPLE

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

  /* export cookies to this file when closing the handle */
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "/tmp/cookies.txt");

  ret = curl_easy_perform(curl);

  /* close the handle, write the cookies! */
  curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
}

AVAILABILITY

Along with HTTP

RETURN VALUE

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