cookie原理入门概念介绍

3. COOKIE FUNDAMENTALS

3.1 Introduction

Whether you're a programmer or just a web user looking for answers, a big part of understanding cookies is to go into the gory details. This section does just that.

3.2 How does a cookie really work?

Understanding how cookies really work requires an understanding of how HTTP works.

Cookies transport from Server to Client and back as an HTTP header.

（Cookies是从服务端传递给客户端的一些文本数据，在以后访问同一个站点时，浏览器会再把这些数据通过http请求包头发送给服务器。）

The specifications for this header are explicitly laid out in RFC 2109 .

When a cookie is sent from the server to the browser, an additional line is added to the HTTP headers (example):

Content-type: text/html
Set-Cookie: foo=bar; path=/; expires Mon, 09-Dec-2002 13:46:00 GMT

 

This header entry would result in a cookie named foo . The value of foo is bar . In addition, this cookie has a path of / , meaning that it is valid for the entire site , and it has an expiration date of Dec 9, 2002 at 1:46pm Greenwich Mean Time (or Universal Time) . Provided the browser can understand this header, the cookie will be set. （当浏览器接收到Set-Cookie的“命令”后，按照预定好的协议，浏览器会将这些保存起来，或文件或内存，这可能取决于cookie的有效期。）

When a cookie is sent from the browser to the server, the cookie header is changed slightly:

Content-type: text/html
Cookie: foo=bar

Here, the server is made aware of a cookie called foo , whose value is bar .

 

 

3.3 Breakdown of Cookie Parameters  （Cookie参数明细，主要讲解下Cookie的各个属性）

As we have just seen, a cookie contains more than simply a name and a value. In fact, a cookie has 6 parameters that can be passed to it:（一个CookieItem具有6方面的描述信息。）

• The name of the cookie,（必选）
• The value of the cookie,（必选）
• The expiration date of the cookie,（可选，默认值-1，表示浏览器关闭则清除。）
• The path the cookie is valid for,（一般用于浏览器管理cookie用 ，用于限定cookie的作用域）
• The domain the cookie is valid for,（一般用于浏览器管理cookie用，这样，浏览器才知道访问某个url所属的域名时，会在本地cookie文件中找有没有有效的cookie信息要传递给服务端去。）

（注意：domain+path仅仅就是用来限制和匹配cookie的作用域的。因为用户通过浏览器会去访问许多的站点，也有很多站点都用了cookie技术，那么浏览器必须应该记住哪个cookie对应哪个站点呀，另外，即使在同一个站点内，还可以通过path来决定同一个站点的cookie，是否能作用于当前访问的path。比如，当前浏览器中保存了域为.google.com的一个cookie，那么当我们访问google时，浏览器先会看看cookie库中有没有该站点的cookie信息呀，如果有应该传给服务，当然还要通过path做进一步判定，文件中保存的cookie能不能使用于当前访问的path呢。path匹配一般是最大匹配原则，比如我们访问http://code.google.com时，域匹配到.google.com）

• The need for a secure connection to exist to use the cookie.

Two of these are mandatory (its name and its value). The other four can be set manually or automatically. Each parameter is separated by a semicolon when set explicitly. Here is a detailed description of each.

Name, Value

The name of a cookie and its value are set simply by pairing them together:

... foo=bar ...

The value of a cookie can also be null, for the purpose of clearing the cookie value:

 

（之所以允许为null，是为了为服务器清空客户端的cookie留了后路，服务器可以重置cookie的值的。）

... foo= ...

 

Expires

The expires parameter lets you determine the lifetime of the cookie.

... expires=Mon, 01-Jan-2001 00:00:00 GMT ...

 

If Expires is not set explicitly, then it defaults to end-of-session. （注意：Servlet API提供的是setMaxAge(int seconds)，其中当输入参数seconds为-1时，表示end-of-session，即当浏览器关闭时，浏览器把cookie信息从文件中删除。） The length of a session can vary depending on browsers and servers, but generally a session is the length of time that the browser is open for (even if the user is no longer at that site). （注意：其实server将cookie信息发送给浏览器，浏览器如果不遵守协议，不保存这些cookie信息，server是拿它没办法的。或者说用户把浏览器设置成“不接收第三方cookie”。这样，服务端一般只会用cookie来做些提高用户体验的东西，个性化什么的，也就是说如果用户不在意隐私的话，那么cookie只会给用户带来好处。这里值得一提的是tomcat的HttpSession的JSESSION_ID也是依靠cookie来保存的，严格来讲session机制也有一部分信息保存在客户端，当然服务端保存得更多。）

Path

The path parameter is potentially the most useful of the 4 optional cookie settings. （Path尽管是可选项，但是它是四个可选项中用的较多的一个。 原因很简单，cookie的发起是服务端的，服务端开发人员愿意使用Path，因为如果把Cookie看成是应用程序的变量，那么path就相当于是命名空间，用path可以限制cookie.name的作用访问。如果某个cookie的path="\"，那么相当于定义了一个全局变量，因为浏览器会在访问该站点的任何资源时，带上这个cookie；如果path="\hello\"，那么浏览器只会在访问"\hello\"目录及其子目录时，才会带上这个cookie；在访问\advaced\topics\cookie.do资源时，是不会带上这个cookie的。） It sets the URL path the cookie is valid within.

Pages outside of that path cannot read （read这个词用得有点幽默，因为cookies信息是依靠客户端传给服务端的；read好像是server端具备从客户端直接读取信息的权限。但是，如果客户端是个守规矩的家伙时，服务端的开发人员当然喜欢用read，很有主动感。）or use the cookie.

... path=/promo ...

 

If Path is not set explicitly, then it defaults to the URL path of the document creating the cookie.

（如果path不显式设置，那么path被设置成该资源所在的url path.）

Netscape has identified a bug for VERY old versions of Navigator where the path must be specified if an expiration is specified. Furthermore, this path must be set to "/". For more information, browse Netscape's Cookie Spec at:
http://www.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html

Domain

The domain parameter takes the flexibility of the path parameter one step further. If a site uses multiple servers within a domain the it is important to make the cookie accessible to pages on any of these servers.

... domain=www.myserver.com ...

 

Cookies can be assigned to individual machines, or to an entire Internet domain. The only restrictions on this value is that it must contain at least two dots (.myserver.com, not myserver.com) for the normal top-level domains, or three dots for the "extended" domains (.myserver.ny.us, not myserver.ny.us)

IMPORTANT: The server issuing the cookie must be a member of the domain that it tries to set in the cookie. （发布某个cookie的服务器必须也在这个domain里面，也就是说baidu的机器不可能想浏览器发送个google的cookie，尽管报文上是可以这样发，但是浏览器端会校验的。对于这种非法的cookie，浏览器端是不会接受并保存它的。） That is, a server called www.myserver.com cannot set a cookie for the domain www.yourserver.com. The security implications should be obvious.

If Domain is not set explicitly, then it defaults to the full domain of the document creating the cookie.

Secure

The secure parameter is a flag indicating that a cookie should only be used under a secure server condition, such as SSL. Since most sites do not require secure connections, this defaults to FALSE.

 

 

3.4 How do cookies end up on my hard drive?

After a cookie is transmitted through an HTTP header, it is stored in the memory of your browser . This way the information is quickly and readily available without re-transmission. As we have seen, however, it is possible for the lifetime of a cookie to greatly exceed the amount of time the browser will be open.

In such cases, the browser must have a way of saving the cookie when you are not browsing, or when your computer is shut off. The only way the browser can do this is to move the cookies from memory into the hard drive. This way, when you start your browser a few days later, you still have the cookies you had previously.

The browser is constantly performing maintenance on its cookies. （浏览器是要管理这些cookie的） Every time you open your browser, your cookies are read in from disk, and every time you close your browser, your cookies are re-saved to disk.（一般浏览器启动时，回去加载磁盘上的cookie信息。） As a cookie expires, it is discarded from memory and it is no longer saved to the hard drive.

3.5 What are all those entries in my cookies.txt file?

The layout of Netscape's cookies.txt file is such that each line contains one name-value pair . An example cookies.txt file may have an entry that looks like this:

.netscape.com 
    TRUE   / 
 FALSE  946684799   
NETSCAPE_ID  100103

Each line represents a single piece of stored information. A tab is inserted between each of the fields.

From left-to-right, here is what each field represents:

domain - The domain that created AND that can read the variable.
flag - A TRUE/FALSE value indicating if all machines within a given domain can access the variable. This value is set automatically by the browser, depending on the value you set for domain .
path - The path within the domain that the variable is valid for.
secure - A TRUE/FALSE value indicating if a secure connection with the domain is needed to access the variable.
expiration - The UNIX time that the variable will expire on. UNIX time is defined as the number of seconds since Jan 1, 1970 00:00:00 GMT. （就是java中的long，把这个long转化成时间即可。）
name - The name of the variable.
value - The value of the variable.

3.6 Where does MSIE keep its cookies?

Microsoft keeps its cookies in different locations, depending on the version of explorer and Windows you are using. The best way to find it is to use the Windows "Search" feature an look for the "Cookies" folder. More information can be found here .

Although the location may be different, the format is the same. Each individual domain's cookies are stored in their own file（每个domain是个单独的文件） , along with the username that accessed the site. For example, if I went to Yahoo.com, I would get a cookie that is stored in the file [e-mail] .

Note that the username is not sent with the cookie（是用来表示使用本机器的用户的） . See Section 2.10 for more information.

3.7 Are cookies Year 2000 Compliant?

There is no date-specific restriction on the HTTP header used to transmit cookies. In fact, the only determining factor in whether a cookie will be accepted is the programming of the client receiving the cookie.

The major browsers do not have an issue with this. Cookies with expiration dates set with 2-digit or 4-digit years are understood properly. Naturally, it's always advisable to use 4-digit years when setting cookies.

 

原文 ：  http://www.cookiecentral.com/faq/#3