A cookie is an HTTP header, which is a key-value pair in the header fields section of an HTTP message.
The Set-Cookie and Cookie headers are used with cookies. The Cookie-request header is sent from the server in request for cookies on the client side. An example of a Cookie-request header is:
Set-Cookie: sessauth=44c46a10; expires=Wednesday, 27-Sep-2006 03:59:59 GMT |
In this example, the server requests that the client store the following cookie:
sessauth=44c46a10 |
Everything after the first semi-colon contains additional information about the cookie, such as the expiration date. When the Adapter sees this header, it extracts the cookie sessauth=44c46a10 and returns it to the server on subsequent requests. The Adapter prepends a cookie header to the HTTP request, for example:
Cookie: sessauth=44c46a10 |
Each time the Adapter sends a request to the same server during a session, the cookie is sent along with the request.
The HTTPS Adapter checks time-limited cookies with expiration dates to ensure that they have not expired. If they have expired, the cookie is removed and is not resent to the originating server. As a result, the session state is removed.
The following standard expiration date formats are recognized by the HTTPS Adapter:
"Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT" ;RFC 822, updated by RFC 1123 "Sunday, 06-Nov-94 08:49:37 GMT" ;RFC 850, obsoleted by RFC 1036 "Sunday, 06-Nov-1994 08:49:37 GMT" ;RFC 1036 "Sun Nov 6 08:49:37 1994" ;ANSI C’s asctime() |
If the expiration date is in another format, the Adapter does not recognize the expiration date. Instead, it treats the cookie as if it does not have an expiration date.