For an affiliate click tracking program, when someone clicks one of our affiliate links, I want to set a cookie that contains a simple integer affiliate_id. I'm using CGI::Application and this is driving me batty. First I tried this (inside a CGI::Application run-mode):

my $url = $cgi->param('url');

my $cookie = $cgi->cookie(
    -name    => 'affiliate_id',
    -value   => $aid,
    -path    => '/',
    -domain  => $ENV{'HTTP_HOST'},
    -secure  => 0,
    -expires => '+3d'
);

$self->header_add(-cookie => $cookie);
$self->header_add(-redirect => $cgi->redirect($url));
[download]

It redirects, but it refuses to set the cookie. I have telnetted in and no cookie header is ever sent.

I also tried this variation:

$self->header_add(-cookie => [$cookie]);
[download]

but it made no difference, still refused to set the cookie.

So then, I tried using CGI directly like this:

print $cgi->header(
    -cookie => $cookie,
    -redirect => $cgi->redirect($url)
);
[download]

Same thing happens, no luck with the cookie, although it redirects.

I also tried just setting the cookie and returning nothing from the run mode, and it always prints "1/8" - I have no idea where that is coming from or why it is printing that.

Finally, after running a super search here, I did this:

$self->header_type('redirect');
$self->header_props(
    -url => $url,
    -cookie => [$cookie] );
[download]

This seems to be working fine, but I am wondering why all this is so flaky - I should be able to use header_add() right? And I should be able to print directly as well, right?

Update:
I'm using mod_perl, CGI.pm version 3.04
CGI::Application Version 3.31
All packaged by debian.