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NOTE: You can skip the intro. Though it does tell you how i got to whe
+re im at with this.

BEGIN INTRO: ##############################################

A funny thing happened at work. I was hired because of my perl, 
and after i arrived they decided to standarize on python. This 
was after i was tasked with writing a client for our QA department
so that we could automate whitebox testing by by-passing the front end
of our website. Needless to say i am now working at an all MS house
and they think perl is for Linux/Unix only. i guess they never have
heard of ActiveState. Well after spending a week learning python
and writing a client that can deal with cookies and redirects, the con
+versation
went like this:

Boss: How long until the backend client is done?
me: i'm not sure.
B: Why?
m: Python has blocking sockets by default and their socket.setblocking
+(0) function
   doesnt.
B: doesnt what?
m: function.
B: Have you asked for help?
m: im the only one here who knows python. 
B: Then why did we standardize on that?
m: i wanted perl
B: but your the only who knows perl.
m: im also the only one who knows python.
B: if you wrote the backend client in perl it would take to long
m: No, it wouldnt the moduals are already written i just have
   to script them together.
B: How long would that take?
m: About a day.
B: Howmuch longer in python?
m: i dont know ... ive only been using python for about a week.
B: just get it done. 
m: perl it is then.

END INTRO#########################################################

so the problem is HTTP::Cookies which ive never used before. i'm sure
i have all the pieces here but NOT in the right order or something.

They symptom is this:

I can create the cookie jar but neither the  $cjar->save() function se
+ems to work
nor the $cjar->extract_cookies($response) seems to work.

It will create the cookie jar file, but NOT write anyting to it.

Out of curiosity i drilled down into the header object just to see if 
+the cookies are there
and like automagic they indeed were there. But accessing them.... im l
+ost.

So im posting a limited piece of code that gives me the problem that i
+ve just described.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use URI;
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request;
use HTTP::Headers;
use HTTP::Response;
use HTTP::Cookies;

# Create a cookie jar. Hard coding the name of the file for now.
#putting in a headers object incase we need it later on.

$cookie_jar = HTTP::Cookies->new('cookies.txt');
my $hdrs = new HTTP::Headers();

# get a url object and a request object so we can go cruseing down the
+ web

my $url = new URI::URL('http://foo.com');
my $req = new HTTP::Request(GET, $url, $hdrs);

#make a useragent so we can spoof the server as to what client we actu
+ally are

#NOTE: this is importaint because the site i work at only supports IE

my $ua = new LWP::UserAgent;
$ua->agent('Mozilla/4.0 (Compatable; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)');

# Send out the request

my $responce = $ua -> request($req);

#save our cookies for a rainy day in cookies.txt

$cookie_jar->extract_cookies($responce);
if($responce->is_success) 
{
        #make sure we saved the cookies

    $cookie_jar->save('cookies.txt');
    print $responce->content;
}
else
{
    print $responce->error_as_HTML;
}

Now, at this point i get a file 'cookies.txt' but no cookies.
I know that the cookies are indeed being sent by telneting to port
80 and issueing a GET /default.asp HTTP\1.1\n\n and looking at the
header and ive drilled down into the responce object and verified that
+ the
cookies are indeed in there about 3 levels or so down in a hash of a h
+ash of hashes
(or is that son of a son of a son of a salor?)

So i've verified the data is there.
The documentation maintains that the both $cjar->extract_cookies($resp
+) and
$cjar->save([file]) BOTH save the cookies to the cookie jar.
I've verified that i have write perms to the box im using. 
I've taken the script an installed it on a Linux 5.x box ran it and
verified that indeed it still will create the file but not save the da
+ta.

What am i missing?

[download]

Russ
Brainbench 'Most Valuable Professional' for Perl

In reply to HTTP::Cookies what am i missing? (Moved from Q&A) by Russ

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