browser-cookies

browser-cookies

Tiny cookies library for the browser

• Features
• Browser compatibility
• Installation
• Usage
• API
• Options
• Examples

Features

• Clean and easy to use API
• Small footprint (minified and gzipped ~ 0.5kB)
• No dependencies
• RFC6265 compliant
• Cross browser support
• Unit tests
• Supports CommonJS (e.g. Browserify)

Browser compatibility

Cross browser support is verified on real browsers using automated testing:

Or run the unit tests for your current browser right now.

Installation

Using NPM
npm install browser-cookies

Using Bower
bower install browser-cookies

Usage

var cookies = require('browser-cookies');

cookies.set('firstName', 'Lisa');
cookies.set('firstName', 'Lisa', {expires: 365}); // Expires after 1 year
cookies.set('firstName', 'Lisa', {secure: true, domain: 'www.example.org'});

cookies.get('firstName'); // Returns cookie value (or null)

cookies.erase('firstName'); // Removes cookie

More examples

API

API contents:

• method cookies.set(name, value [, options])
• method cookies.get(name)
• method cookies.erase(name, [, options])
• property cookies.defaults

---

cookies.set( name, value [, options] )
Method to save a cookie.

argument	type	description
name	string	the name of the cookie to save.
value	string	the value to save.
options	object	may contain any of the properties specified in options below. If an option is not specified, the value configured in cookies.defaults will be used.

---

cookies.get( name )
Method that returns a cookie value, or null if the cookie is not found.

argument	type	description
name	string	the name of the cookie to retrieve.

---

cookies.erase( name [, options ] )
Method to remove a cookie.

argument	type	description
name	string	the name of the cookie to remove.
options	object	may contain the domain and path properties specified in options below. If an option is not specified, the value configured in cookies.defaults will be used.

---

cookies.defaults
This object may be used to change the default value of each option specified in options below.

Options

Options may be set globally using cookies.defaults or passed as function argument, see the Examples section below and the API reference above for details.

Name	Type	Default	Description
expires	Number, Date, String	0	Configure when the cookie expires by using one of the following types as value: A Number of days until the cookie expires. If set to 0 the cookie will expire at the end of the session. A Date object such as new Date(2018, 3, 27). A String in a format recognized by Date.parse().
domain	String	""	The domain from where the cookie is readable. If set to "" the current domain will be used.
path	String	"/"	The path from where the cookie is readable. The default value of "/" allows the cookie to be readable from all paths. If set to "" the cookie will only be readable from the current browser path. Note that cookies don't support relative paths such as "../../some/path" so paths must be absolute like "/some/path".
secure	Boolean	false	If true the cookie will only be transmitted over secure protocols like https.
httponly	Boolean	false	If true the cookie may only be read by the web server. This option may be set to prevent malicious scripts from accessing cookies, not all browsers support this feature yet.

Examples

Count the number of a visits to a page:

var cookies = require('browser-cookies');

// Get cookie value
var visits = cookies.get('count');
console.log("You've been here " + parseInt(visits) + " times before!");

// Increment the counter and set (or update) the cookie
cookies.set('count', parseInt(visits) + 1, {expires: 365});

JSON may be saved by converting the JSON object into a string:

var cookies = require('browser-cookies');

// Store JSON data
var user = {firstName: 'Sofia', lastName: 'Dueñas'};
cookies.set('user', JSON.stringify(user))

// Retrieve JSON data
var userString = cookies.get('user');
alert('Hi ' + JSON.parse(userString).firstName);

The default value of cookie options may be changed:

var cookies = require('browser-cookies');

// Override defaults
cookies.defaults.secure = true;
cookies.defaults.expires = 7;

// 'secure' option enabled and cookie expires in 7 days
cookies.set('FirstName', 'John')

// 'secure' option enabled and cookie expires in 30 days
cookies.set('LastName', 'Smith', {expires: 30})

Todo's

• Additional tests:
  • Extend test cases to verify proper cookie name encoding/decoding (stubbed and non-stubbed).
  • More bad weather scenarios.
  • Mobile browser testing (Disabled automated testing for mobile browsers because the results varied per run).
  • Manually verify support on old browsers that that still need to be supported (i.e. IE6)?
• Distribution:
  • Generate build (development build + minified version) for use without a loader.
• Cross browser consistency:
  • When a domain is not specified most browsers only allow an exact domain match, but IE sends cookies to all subdomains. Perhaps save cookies to all subdomains by default for consistent behavior amongst all browsers? Would need to investigate whether something like window.location.hostname is cross-browser supported though. Or check how other cookie libs solved this. But first of all need to decide on the desired behavior.

Development

This design goal is to provide to smallest possible size (when minified and gzipped) for the given API, while remaining compliant to RFC6265 and providing cross-browser compatibility and consistency.

Development setup (requires node and git to be installed):

git clone https://github.com/voltace/browser-cookies.git
cd browser-cookies
npm install         # Install dev dependencies
npm run test:local  # Run unit tests locally (takes ~5 seconds)
npm run build       # Create minified version

Feel free to add an issue on GitHub for any questions, bug or feature request you may have.

License

Public Domain (UNLICENSE)