in reply to Re: Cookies created via CGI.pm and CGI::Cookie incorrectly made
in thread Cookies created via CGI.pm and CGI::Cookie incorrectly made

Have you tried the latest CGI.pm? The latest is CGI.pm-2.91. I suggest you try it out and report back.

I was hoping for a better explaination than just to try a newer version. It's odd (in my example) that the older version doesn't have this bug, yet the newer one does. The fact of the matter is that this version of CGI.pm is in the wild and ithe problem is being addressed to me in alarmingly higher frequencies each week.

but since CGI.pm is distributed CPAN, it doesn't matter.

It does matter, since the CGI.pm module is one of the most widely used modules out there. This makes it sensitive to changes.

I did find a changelog here, The only mention of cookie bugs fixed (or at all) is for version 2.29, the problem server is running 2.57.

The problem I'm facing is that this is for a freely distributed, Open Source program and asking people to either upgrade their Perl, CGI.pm, or,install and import from a different version of a CGI.pm is over many of the user's heads.

 

-justin simoni
!skazat!

  • Comment on Re: Re: Cookies created via CGI.pm and CGI::Cookie incorrectly made

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Re: Re: Re: Cookies created via CGI.pm and CGI::Cookie incorrectly made
by Doc Technical (Initiate) on Mar 18, 2003 at 20:52 UTC
    OK, here is the version of your script I placed on a Sun Solaris web server:

    #!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use CGI qw(:standard);
use CGI::Cookie;
my $q = new CGI;

my $cookie =   $q->cookie(-name  =>  "CUSTOMER1",
                          -value =>  "WILE E. COYOTE",
                          -Path  =>  "/");

my $cookie2 =  new CGI::Cookie(-name  =>  "CUSTOMER2",
                               -value =>  "BEEP BEEP",
                               -Path  =>  "/");

print $q->header;
print $cookie;
print "<br>\n"; # $q->br;
print $cookie2;
print "<br>\n"; # $q->br;

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    (Note: we are using 2.42, the br method is not supported.)

    When I run this from a shell command line I get: 
    Content-Type: text/html

CUSTOMER1=WILE%20E.%20COYOTE; path=/&lt;br&gt;
CUSTOMER2=BEEP%20BEEP; path=/&lt;br&gt;

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    When I invoke this via a browser, it displays: 
    CUSTOMER1=WILE%20E.%20COYOTE; path=/
CUSTOMER2=BEEP%20BEEP; path=/

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    This is in keeping with behavior I would expect.

    I am not clear on what it is you are trying to do with this script in the first place. If you are trying to see the actual ASC string that the browser uses to set a cookie, this is the wrong way to do it.

    Regardless of which method you are using to create a cookie, all you are doing is creating a reference to a hash with the values needed to make a browser set the cookie when it gets it. This does not include the cookie header or the way the values must be formatted for the browser to handle them properly.

    To make a browser set a cookie, you always have to issue the Set-cookie: header prior to the first Content-type: header sent to the browser. Using CGI.pm, this is accomplished by passing the cookies to the header method. If you replace all the print statements in your script with

    print $q->header(-cookie => [$cookie, $cookie2]);
print "Hello there!<br>\n";

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    then the browser will set the cookies properly (and you won't be issuing an empty HTML document either, as your example does).

    For further information on cookies, see: http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html.

    Note that you can bypass CGI.pm altogether and make a CGI script send what the browser needs to set a cookie and display some HTML this way: 
    #!/usr/bin/perl

print <<EOF;
Set-cookie: CUSTOMER=WILE_E_COYOTE; path=/; expires=Wednesday, 09-Nov-
+03 23:12:40 GMT

Content-type:text/html

<html><body>
Here is some HTML blather.
</body></html>
EOF

exit(0);

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      All I'm doing with the small script is providing a bare bones example to highlight a problem I'm facing in a way I can test, since, as I stated, I can't ssh into the site, I'm working through the web browser to debug something. Such is the life of the lowly CGI programmer.

      Namely, I'm getting completely different results with the same code, one of the results is highly broken. Believe me, I know how to set a cookie to be used via a browser. In all civility, I don't know why that is tripping up so many people. I could have pasted all 8000+ lines of the program, but that doesn't help any of us.

      Correct me if I am wrong, but this code: 

       
#!/usr/bin/perl 

use CGI;
my $q = new CGI; 

my $foo = $q->cookie(-name => 'someName', -value => {some => "value"})
+; 

print $foo;

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      will set foo to a scalar value, not a reference to some internal cookie object.. So, if I print out, like I had in my example, it doesn't matter where i"m printing it out, for testing purposes.

       

      -justin simoni
      !skazat!

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Re: Re: Re: Cookies created via CGI.pm and CGI::Cookie incorrectly made
by Doc Technical (Initiate) on Mar 18, 2003 at 20:44 UTC
    -
[reply]
      Oops - in that last code example I missed a line break. The corrected script: 
      #!/usr/bin/perl

print <<EOF;
Set-cookie: CUSTOMER=WILE_E_COYOTE; path=/; expires=Wednesday, 09-Nov-
+03 23:12:40 GMT

Content-type:text/html

<html><body>
Here is some HTML blather.
</body></html>
EOF

exit(0);

      [download]
[reply]
[d/l]
      -
[reply]

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