How to implement cookie support in ruby net/http?

Question

Hello, I'd like to add cookie support to a ruby class utilizing net/http to browse the web. Cookies have to be stored in a file to survive after the script has ended. Of course I can read the specs and write some kind of a handler, use some cookie.txt format and so on, but it seems to mean reinventing the wheel. Is there a better way to accomplish this task? Maybe some kind of a cooie jar class to take care of cookies?

Answer 1

You can send receive cookies using headers.

You can store the header in any persistence framework. Whether it is some sort of database, or files.

Answer 2

Taken from DZone Snippets

http = Net::HTTP.new('profil.wp.pl', 443)
http.use_ssl = true
path = '/login.html'

# GET request -> so the host can set his cookies
resp, data = http.get(path, nil)
cookie = resp.response['set-cookie'].split('; ')[0]


# POST request -> logging in
data = 'serwis=wp.pl&url=profil.html&tryLogin=1&countTest=1&logowaniessl=1&login_username=blah&login_password=blah'
headers = {
  'Cookie' => cookie,
  'Referer' => 'http://profil.wp.pl/login.html',
  'Content-Type' => 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
}

resp, data = http.post(path, data, headers)


# Output on the screen -> we should get either a 302 redirect (after a successful login) or an error page
puts 'Code = ' + resp.code
puts 'Message = ' + resp.message
resp.each {|key, val| puts key + ' = ' + val}
puts data

update

#To save the cookies, you can use PStore
cookies = PStore.new("cookies.pstore")

# Save the cookie  
cookies.transaction do
  cookies[:some_identifier] = cookie
end

# Retrieve the cookie back
cookies.transaction do
  cookie = cookies[:some_identifier] 
end

Answer 3

I've used Curb and Mechanize for a similar project. Just enable cookies support and save the cookies to a temp cookiejar... If your using net/http or packages without cookie support built in, you will need to write your own cookie handling.