Reading cookie expired date

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

I have a script that sets 3 cookies. They have expiration dates but I don't know how to read the date and force people to login again. I've made some changes to my site and want to force people to login so their pages aren't cached. I'm reading the cookie like this:

    local(@getcookies) = split (/; /,$ENV{'HTTP_COOKIE'});
    local(%cookies);
    foreach(@getcookies){
        ($ckey, $cval) = split (/=/,$_);
        $cookies{$ckey} = $cval;
    }
    $username = $cookies{'reguser'};
    $password = $cookies{'regpass'};
    $regtype = $cookies{'regtype'};
    $login = "Login" if ($username && $password && !$logout);
    }
[download]

The cookies get set like this:

$expires=&calc_cookie_expires(-1);
            &write_cookies;
sub write_cookies{
    print "Set-Cookie: reguser=$username; expires=$expires; path=/;\n"
+;
    print "Set-Cookie: regpass=$password; expires=$expires; path=/;\n"
+;
    print "Set-Cookie: regtype=$regtype; expires=$expires; path=/;\n";
}
[download]

I need to read the date and based on the date force everyone to sign in again so the cookie is set again. Thanks.

Comment on Reading cookie expired date Select or Download Code

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Re: Reading cookie expired date by CountZero (Bishop) on Apr 08, 2012 at 10:45 UTC
For sure someone else will answer you about the cookies, but, please tell me: Wy do you use `local` here? I think you want to use lexical variables here and those are declared with the `my` keyword. Why did you prefix your subroutine calls with the `&` sigil? Are these subroutines prototyped and you want to avoid the prototype checks? `write_cookies` isn't prototyped so you should drop the `&`. It serves no useful purpose. Also, I try not to have variables inside my subroutines that are not passed in as parameters, unless it are really and truly global variables: `sub write_cookies{ my ($username, $password, $regtype, $expires) = @_; print "Set-Cookie: reguser=$username; expires=$expires; path=/;\n +"; print "Set-Cookie: regpass=$password; expires=$expires; path=/;\n +"; print "Set-Cookie: regtype=$regtype; expires=$expires; path=/;\n" +; }` [download] And then call the sub as follows: `write_cookies($username, $password, $regtype, calc_cookie_expires(-1)) +;` [download] CountZero A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James My blog: Imperial Deltronics	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Reading cookie expired date by htmanning (Friar) on Apr 08, 2012 at 19:29 UTC
CountZero - You're probably right. Someone else wrote these routines years ago and now I have to try and hack them up. But, the short answer is I don't really know what I'm doing. Wish I did. Thanks.	[reply]
Re: Reading cookie expired date by Anonymous Monk on Apr 08, 2012 at 11:06 UTC
:) In 2008 you asked the same question Help reading cookies, you should use CGI/CGI::Cookie for cookies	[reply]
Re: Reading cookie expired date by Anonymous Monk on Apr 08, 2012 at 21:02 UTC
Don't rely on cookie expiration dates. Use the cookie content to look-up a record in your database that tells you whether to honor the session anymore or not.	[reply]