cookieString

cookieString refers to a string of text that represents the cookies associated with a web request or a web response. This string is used by web browsers and web servers to manage and transmit HTTP cookies, which are small pieces of data stored by a website on a user's computer.

The format of a cookieString is typically a semicolon-separated list of individual cookie definitions. Each cookie definition includes a name-value pair, such as "username=john.doe". Additional attributes can be included to control the behavior of the cookie, such as its expiration date (Expires), the domain it applies to (Domain), and the path on the server where it is valid (Path). For example, a more complex cookieString might look like "sessionid=abc123xyz; expires=Wednesday, 31-Dec-2024 23:59:59 GMT; path=/; domain=example.com".

When a browser makes a request to a server, it includes a "Cookie" header in the HTTP request, which contains the cookieString of cookies that the server has previously set for that domain. The server then processes this string to retrieve the relevant cookie data. Conversely, when a server sends a response to a browser, it may include a "Set-Cookie" header. This header contains a cookieString that instructs the browser to store one or more cookies. The exact formatting and syntax can vary slightly depending on the HTTP version and specific browser implementations, but the core concept of a structured string for cookie data remains consistent.