The 'cookie' npm package is a simple, lightweight utility for parsing and serializing cookies in Node.js. It is designed to work with the HTTP server's cookie headers to read and write cookies on the server side.
Parse Cookie Header
This feature allows you to parse the Cookie header string into an object where each property is a cookie name and its value is the cookie value. It automatically handles URL-encoded cookie values.
const cookie = require('cookie');
const cookies = cookie.parse('foo=bar; equation=E%3Dmc%5E2');Serialize Cookie
This feature lets you serialize a cookie name-value pair into a Set-Cookie header string with optional attributes such as `HttpOnly`, `Max-Age`, and others. It is useful for setting cookies in HTTP responses.
const cookie = require('cookie');
const serializedCookie = cookie.serialize('foo', 'bar', { httpOnly: true, maxAge: 60 * 60 * 24 });js-cookie is a simple, lightweight JavaScript API for handling cookies. It works well in all browsers and provides a clean API for cookie manipulation. Unlike 'cookie', js-cookie is primarily designed for client-side use and does not have built-in support for Node.js environments.
tough-cookie is a more robust package for handling cookies in Node.js. It offers a wider range of features compared to 'cookie', including cookie jar support, which allows for storing and iterating over multiple cookies easily. It also handles parsing and serialization but with more options and considerations for security and cookie management.
The 'cookies' package is another alternative for handling cookies in Node.js and is often used with the Koa web framework. It provides a higher-level API for cookie management, including encryption and signing of cookie values, which 'cookie' does not offer out of the box.
Basic HTTP cookie parser and serializer for HTTP servers.
$ npm install cookie
const cookie = require("cookie");
// import * as cookie from 'cookie';
Parse a HTTP Cookie header string and returning an object of all cookie name-value pairs.
The str argument is the string representing a Cookie header value and options is an
optional object containing additional parsing options.
const cookies = cookie.parse("foo=bar; equation=E%3Dmc%5E2");
// { foo: 'bar', equation: 'E=mc^2' }
cookie.parse accepts these properties in the options object.
Specifies a function that will be used to decode a cookie-value. Since the value of a cookie has a limited character set (and must be a simple string), this function can be used to decode a previously-encoded cookie value into a JavaScript string.
The default function is the global decodeURIComponent, wrapped in a try..catch. If an error
is thrown it will return the cookie's original value. If you provide your own encode/decode
scheme you must ensure errors are appropriately handled.
Serialize a cookie name-value pair into a Set-Cookie header string. The name argument is the
name for the cookie, the value argument is the value to set the cookie to, and the options
argument is an optional object containing additional serialization options.
const setCookie = cookie.serialize("foo", "bar");
// foo=bar
cookie.serialize accepts these properties in the options object.
Specifies a function that will be used to encode a cookie-value.
Since value of a cookie has a limited character set (and must be a simple string), this function can be used to encode
a value into a string suited for a cookie's value, and should mirror decode when parsing.
The default function is the global encodeURIComponent.
Specifies the number (in seconds) to be the value for the Max-Age Set-Cookie attribute.
The cookie storage model specification states that if both expires and
maxAge are set, then maxAge takes precedence, but it is possible not all clients by obey this,
so if both are set, they should point to the same date and time.
Specifies the Date object to be the value for the Expires Set-Cookie attribute.
When no expiration is set clients consider this a "non-persistent cookie" and delete it the current session is over.
The cookie storage model specification states that if both expires and
maxAge are set, then maxAge takes precedence, but it is possible not all clients by obey this,
so if both are set, they should point to the same date and time.
Specifies the value for the Domain Set-Cookie attribute.
When no domain is set clients consider the cookie to apply to the current domain only.
Specifies the value for the Path Set-Cookie attribute.
When no path is set, the path is considered the "default path".
Enables the HttpOnly Set-Cookie attribute.
When enabled, clients will not allow client-side JavaScript to see the cookie in document.cookie.
Enables the Secure Set-Cookie attribute.
When enabled, clients will only send the cookie back if the browser has a HTTPS connection.
Enables the Partitioned Set-Cookie attribute.
When enabled, clients will only send the cookie back when the current domain and top-level domain matches.
This is an attribute that has not yet been fully standardized, and may change in the future. This also means clients may ignore this attribute until they understand it. More information about can be found in the proposal.
Specifies the value for the Priority Set-Cookie attribute.
'low' will set the Priority attribute to Low.'medium' will set the Priority attribute to Medium, the default priority when not set.'high' will set the Priority attribute to High.More information about priority levels can be found in the specification.
Specifies the value for the SameSite Set-Cookie attribute.
true will set the SameSite attribute to Strict for strict same site enforcement.'lax' will set the SameSite attribute to Lax for lax same site enforcement.'none' will set the SameSite attribute to None for an explicit cross-site cookie.'strict' will set the SameSite attribute to Strict for strict same site enforcement.More information about enforcement levels can be found in the specification.
The following example uses this module in conjunction with the Node.js core HTTP server to prompt a user for their name and display it back on future visits.
var cookie = require("cookie");
var escapeHtml = require("escape-html");
var http = require("http");
var url = require("url");
function onRequest(req, res) {
// Parse the query string
var query = url.parse(req.url, true, true).query;
if (query && query.name) {
// Set a new cookie with the name
res.setHeader(
"Set-Cookie",
cookie.serialize("name", String(query.name), {
httpOnly: true,
maxAge: 60 * 60 * 24 * 7, // 1 week
}),
);
// Redirect back after setting cookie
res.statusCode = 302;
res.setHeader("Location", req.headers.referer || "/");
res.end();
return;
}
// Parse the cookies on the request
var cookies = cookie.parse(req.headers.cookie || "");
// Get the visitor name set in the cookie
var name = cookies.name;
res.setHeader("Content-Type", "text/html; charset=UTF-8");
if (name) {
res.write("<p>Welcome back, <b>" + escapeHtml(name) + "</b>!</p>");
} else {
res.write("<p>Hello, new visitor!</p>");
}
res.write('<form method="GET">');
res.write(
'<input placeholder="enter your name" name="name"> <input type="submit" value="Set Name">',
);
res.end("</form>");
}
http.createServer(onRequest).listen(3000);
npm test
npm run bench
name hz min max mean p75 p99 p995 p999 rme samples
· simple 8,566,313.09 0.0000 0.3694 0.0001 0.0001 0.0002 0.0002 0.0003 ±0.64% 4283157 fastest
· decode 3,834,348.85 0.0001 0.2465 0.0003 0.0003 0.0003 0.0004 0.0006 ±0.38% 1917175
· unquote 8,315,355.96 0.0000 0.3824 0.0001 0.0001 0.0002 0.0002 0.0003 ±0.72% 4157880
· duplicates 1,944,765.97 0.0004 0.2959 0.0005 0.0005 0.0006 0.0006 0.0008 ±0.24% 972384
· 10 cookies 675,345.67 0.0012 0.4328 0.0015 0.0015 0.0019 0.0020 0.0058 ±0.75% 337673
· 100 cookies 61,040.71 0.0152 0.4092 0.0164 0.0160 0.0196 0.0228 0.2260 ±0.71% 30521 slowest
✓ parse top-sites (15) 22945ms
name hz min max mean p75 p99 p995 p999 rme samples
· parse accounts.google.com 7,164,349.17 0.0000 0.0929 0.0001 0.0002 0.0002 0.0002 0.0003 ±0.09% 3582184
· parse apple.com 7,817,686.84 0.0000 0.6048 0.0001 0.0001 0.0002 0.0002 0.0003 ±1.05% 3908844
· parse cloudflare.com 7,189,841.70 0.0000 0.0390 0.0001 0.0002 0.0002 0.0002 0.0003 ±0.06% 3594921
· parse docs.google.com 7,051,765.61 0.0000 0.0296 0.0001 0.0002 0.0002 0.0002 0.0003 ±0.06% 3525883
· parse drive.google.com 7,349,104.77 0.0000 0.0368 0.0001 0.0001 0.0002 0.0002 0.0003 ±0.05% 3674553
· parse en.wikipedia.org 1,929,909.49 0.0004 0.3598 0.0005 0.0005 0.0007 0.0007 0.0012 ±0.16% 964955
· parse linkedin.com 2,225,658.01 0.0003 0.0595 0.0004 0.0005 0.0005 0.0005 0.0006 ±0.06% 1112830
· parse maps.google.com 4,423,511.68 0.0001 0.0942 0.0002 0.0003 0.0003 0.0003 0.0005 ±0.08% 2211756
· parse microsoft.com 3,387,601.88 0.0002 0.0725 0.0003 0.0003 0.0004 0.0004 0.0005 ±0.09% 1693801
· parse play.google.com 7,375,980.86 0.0000 0.1994 0.0001 0.0001 0.0002 0.0002 0.0003 ±0.12% 3687991
· parse support.google.com 4,912,267.94 0.0001 2.8958 0.0002 0.0002 0.0003 0.0003 0.0005 ±1.28% 2456134
· parse www.google.com 3,443,035.87 0.0002 0.2783 0.0003 0.0003 0.0004 0.0004 0.0007 ±0.51% 1721518
· parse youtu.be 1,910,492.87 0.0004 0.3490 0.0005 0.0005 0.0007 0.0007 0.0011 ±0.46% 955247
· parse youtube.com 1,895,082.62 0.0004 0.7454 0.0005 0.0005 0.0006 0.0007 0.0013 ±0.64% 947542 slowest
· parse example.com 21,582,835.27 0.0000 0.1095 0.0000 0.0000 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 ±0.13% 10791418
FAQs
HTTP server cookie parsing and serialization
The npm package cookie receives a total of 52,406,481 weekly downloads. As such, cookie popularity was classified as popular.
We found that cookie demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 2 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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