browser-cookies

Tiny cookies library for the browser

• Features
• Browser compatibility
• Installation
• Usage
• API
• Options
• Examples
• How to use with PHP

Features

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

Browser compatibility

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

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

Installation

Using NPM
npm install browser-cookies

Using Bower
bower install browser-cookies

Usage

1var cookies = require('browser-cookies');
2
3cookies.set('firstName', 'Lisa');
4cookies.set('firstName', 'Lisa', {expires: 365}); // Expires after 1 year
5cookies.set('firstName', 'Lisa', {secure: true, domain: 'www.example.org'});
6
7cookies.get('firstName'); // Returns cookie value (or null)
8
9cookies.erase('firstName'); // Removes cookie

More examples

API

API contents:

• method cookies.set(name, value [, options])
• method cookies.get(name)
• method cookies.erase(name, [, options])
• method cookies.all()
• 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, percent encoding will automatically be applied.
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. Percent encoded values will automatically be decoded.

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.all()
Method to get all cookies. Returns an object containing all cookie values with the cookie names used as keys. Percent encoded names and values will automatically be decoded.

---

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

Options

The options shown in the table below may be set globally using cookies.defaults or passed as function argument to cookies.set() and cookies.erase(). Also check out the Examples further below.

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.
samesite	String	""	The samesite argument may be used to prevent cookies from being sent along with cross-site requests. If set to "" the SameSite feature will not be used. If set to "Strict" the cookie will only be sent along with "same-site" requests. If set to "Lax" the cookie will be sent with "same-site" requests and with "cross-site" top-level navigations. This is an experimental feature as only a few browsers support SameSite and the standard has not been finalized yet. Don't use this feature in production environments.

Examples

Count the number of a visits to a page:

1var cookies = require('browser-cookies');
2
3// Get cookie value
4var visits = cookies.get('count') || 0;
5console.log("You've been here " + parseInt(visits) + " times before!");
6
7// Increment the counter and set (or update) the cookie
8cookies.set('count', parseInt(visits) + 1, {expires: 365});

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

1var cookies = require('browser-cookies');
2
3// Store JSON data
4var user = {firstName: 'Sofia', lastName: 'Dueñas'};
5cookies.set('user', JSON.stringify(user))
6
7// Retrieve JSON data
8var userString = cookies.get('user');
9alert('Hi ' + JSON.parse(userString).firstName);

The default cookie options may be changed:

1var cookies = require('browser-cookies');
2
3// Override defaults
4cookies.defaults.secure = true;
5cookies.defaults.expires = 7;
6
7// 'secure' option enabled and cookie expires in 7 days
8cookies.set('FirstName', 'John')
9
10// 'secure' option enabled and cookie expires in 30 days
11cookies.set('LastName', 'Smith', {expires: 30})

The cookies.all method can be used for more advanced functionality, for example to erase all cookies except one:

1var cookies = require('browser-cookies');
2var cookieToKeep = 'FirstName'; // Name of the cookie to keep
3
4// Get all cookies as an object
5var allCookies = cookies.all();
6
7// Iterate over all cookie names
8for (var cookieName in allCookies) {
9  // Erase the cookie (except if it's the cookie that needs to be kept)
10  if(allCookies.hasOwnProperty(cookieName) && cookieName != cookieToKeep) {
11	cookies.erase(cookieName);
12  }
13}

How to use with PHP

Use setrawcookie() instead of setcookie() to prevent PHP from replacing spaces with + characters:

1// Set cookie
2setrawcookie('fullName', rawurlencode('Lisa Cuddy'));
3
4// Get cookie
5$_COOKIE['fullName'];

Development

The design goal is to provide the 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):

1git clone https://github.com/voltace/browser-cookies.git
2cd browser-cookies
3npm install         # Install dev dependencies
4npm run test:local  # Run unit tests locally (takes ~5 seconds)
5npm run build       # Create minified version

Feel free to submit an issue on GitHub for any question, bug or feature requesst you may have.

License

Public Domain (UNLICENSE)