Pulling out the value from a cookie

WarrenBullockIII has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

The following script is just a rough test script I am trying to use to experiment with cookies. The script checks for the existance of a cookie first. If it finds an existing cookie it prints out the a welcome message. If it doesn't find a cookie it prints the form to allow the person to send themselves a cookie. When they visit the page again it will automatically display the welcome message. The problem I am having with this script is that I would like the welcome message to say something like: Welcome back: John instead I get somthing like: Welcome back: user=John I am not sure how to display the cookie value without the name... Any help would be appreciated.


#!/usr/bin/perl

use CGI;
$query = new CGI;

if($ENV{'HTTP_COOKIE'}){
    print $query->header;
    print"<PRE>\n";

$cook = $ENV{'HTTP_COOKIE'};
@cookies = split /;/, $cook;
foreach $new (@cookies){

    print "Welcome back:" . $new;
    }
    print "</PRE>\n";
}
else{
if($query->param('name')){
$cookie = $query->cookie(-name=>'user',
-value=>$query->param('name'), 
-expires=>'+30d', 
-path=>'/');

print $query->header(-cookie=>$cookie);
print "Thank you for registering!\n";
print "When you view this page again you will se a welcoming message i
+nstead of the form<BR>";
}
   else{
print $query->header;
print "<CENTER><H3>Testing a page with cookies</H3></CENTER>\n\n";
print "<P></P>\n\n";

#construct the form that asks for the username...
print "<FORM METHOD=\"post\"\n>";
print "Please type your name: ";
print "<INPUT TYPE=\"text\" NAME=\"name\" SIZE=20>\n";
print "<INPUT TYPE=\"submit\" VALUE=\"register\">\n";
print "</FORM>\n\n";
&end_page;
}
}

sub start_page{
     print "<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Testing a script with cookies</TITLE></
+HEAD>\n\n";
     print "<BODY>\n";
}

sub end_page{
     print "</BODY>\n\n";
     print "</HTML>\n";
}
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Re: Pulling out the value from a cookie
by dws (Chancellor) on Jul 25, 2002 at 02:41 UTC

instead I get somthing like: Welcome back: user=John I am not sure how to display the cookie value without the name ...

If you're going to start futzing with cookies at a low-level (instead of, say, using CGI::Cookie), it helps to understand what cookies are and how they're constructed and transfered.

RFC 2109 is a good starting point, though it's a bit formal. You might find Netscape Cookies to be more readable.

Once you've had a go at one or both of these, give the CGI::Cookie POD a read.

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Re: Pulling out the value from a cookie
by grep (Monsignor) on Jul 25, 2002 at 02:52 UTC

Straight from the POD of CGI.pm

$cookie = $query->cookie(-name=>'sessionID',
                 -value=>'xyzzy',
                 -expires=>'+1h',
                 -path=>'/cgi-bin/database',
                 -domain=>'.capricorn.org',
                 -secure=>1);
print $query->header(-cookie=>$cookie);
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use CGI;
    $query = new CGI;
    $riddle = $query->cookie('riddle_name');
        %answers = $query->cookie('answers');
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grep

Just me, the boy and these two monks, no questions asked.

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