Class Cookie

java.lang.Object
jakarta.servlet.http.Cookie
All Implemented Interfaces:
Serializable, Cloneable

public class Cookie extends Object implements Cloneable, Serializable
Creates a cookie, a small amount of information sent by a servlet to a Web browser, saved by the browser, and later sent back to the server. A cookie's value can uniquely identify a client, so cookies are commonly used for session management.

A cookie has a name, a single value, and optional attributes such as a comment, path and domain qualifiers, a maximum age, and a version number. Some Web browsers have bugs in how they handle the optional attributes, so use them sparingly to improve the interoperability of your servlets.

The servlet sends cookies to the browser by using the HttpServletResponse.addCookie(jakarta.servlet.http.Cookie) method, which adds fields to HTTP response headers to send cookies to the browser, one at a time. The browser is expected to support 50 cookies for each domain, 3000 cookies total, and may limit cookie size to 4 KiB each.

The browser returns cookies to the servlet by adding fields to HTTP request headers. Cookies can be retrieved from a request by using the HttpServletRequest.getCookies() method. Several cookies might have the same name but different path attributes.

Cookies affect the caching of the Web pages that use them. HTTP 1.0 does not cache pages that use cookies created with this class. This class does not support the cache control defined with HTTP 1.1.

This class supports the RFC 6265 specification.

See Also: