Managing HTTP Cookies on iPhone

Question

I want to port a python app that uses mechanize for the iPhone. This app needs to login to a webpage and using the site cookie to go to other pages on that site to get some data.

With my python app I was using mechanize for automatic cookie management. Is there something similar for Objective C that is portable to the iPhone?

Thanks for any help.

There is also an python port. http://wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/mechanize/ — dan, Jan 13 '10 at 00:40

score 72 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 10 '14 at 11:27

72

NSURLConnection gives you cookie management for free. From the URL Loading System Programming Guide:

The URL loading system automatically sends any stored cookies appropriate for an NSURLRequest. unless the request specifies not to send cookies. Likewise, cookies returned in an NSURLResponse are accepted in accordance with the current cookie acceptance policy.

edited Mar 10 '14 at 11:27

Sunil Pandey

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answered Apr 20 '10 at 15:29

Steve Madsen

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How do i check if a NSURLRequest does send with cookies though? how to log it to console? – trillions Feb 24 '13 at 09:38
3

See `-[NSHTTPCookieStorage cookiesForURL:]`. – Steve Madsen Feb 25 '13 at 15:44

score 44 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 16 '19 at 10:36

You can use the NSURLConnection class to perform a HTTP request to login the website, and retrieve the cookie. To perform a request, just create an instance of NSURLConnection and assign a delegate object to it.

NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.google.com/"]];
NSURLConnection *connection = [NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:request delegate:self];

Then, implement a delegate method.

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response
{
    NSHTTPURLResponse *httpResponse = (NSHTTPURLResponse *)response;
    NSDictionary *fields = [httpResponse allHeaderFields];
    NSString *cookie = [fields valueForKey:@"Set-Cookie"]; // It is your cookie
}

Retain or copy the cookie string. When you want to perform another request, add it to your HTTP header of your NSURLRequest instance.

NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.google.com/"]];
[request addValue:cookie forHTTPHeaderField:@"Cookie"];

You don't need to do this, NSURLConnection automatically stores and sends cookies unless you explicitly tell it not to. — benzado, Apr 20 '10 at 15:33
Even though this shouldn't be necessary fixed a suspected bug in iOS 4.2GM — crackity_jones, Nov 12 '10 at 00:09
How would one detect that a Session has expired client-side? What callback should we expect? Or is it just a matter of checking to see if the request (with that session id) succeeded or not? — Cole, Mar 14 '13 at 16:17

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

0

@zonble's answer only works in my localhost; If the server is not running locally, the "Set-Cookie" header is missing from the NSDictionary *fields = [HTTPResponse allHeaderFields];

Finally I found @benzado's solution works fine. Also see: iphone nsurlconnection read cookies @Tal Bereznitskey's answer.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

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answered Jul 27 '15 at 08:28

Ranger Way

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Managing HTTP Cookies on iPhone

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