1--- 2c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al. 3SPDX-License-Identifier: curl 4Short: b 5Long: cookie 6Arg: <data|filename> 7Protocols: HTTP 8Help: Send cookies from string/load from file 9Category: http 10Added: 4.9 11Multi: append 12See-also: 13 - cookie-jar 14 - junk-session-cookies 15Example: 16 - -b "" $URL 17 - -b cookiefile $URL 18 - -b cookiefile -c cookiefile $URL 19 - -b name=Jane $URL 20--- 21 22# `--cookie` 23 24Pass the data to the HTTP server in the Cookie header. It is supposedly the 25data previously received from the server in a `Set-Cookie:` line. The data 26should be in the format `NAME1=VALUE1; NAME2=VALUE2` or as a single filename. 27 28When given a set of specific cookies and not a filename, it makes curl use the 29cookie header with this content explicitly in all outgoing request(s). If 30multiple requests are done due to authentication, followed redirects or 31similar, they all get this cookie header passed on. 32 33If no `=` symbol is used in the argument, it is instead treated as a filename 34to read previously stored cookie from. This option also activates the cookie 35engine which makes curl record incoming cookies, which may be handy if you are 36using this in combination with the --location option or do multiple URL 37transfers on the same invoke. 38 39If the filename is a single minus ("-"), curl reads the contents from stdin. 40If the filename is an empty string ("") and is the only cookie input, curl 41activates the cookie engine without any cookies. 42 43The file format of the file to read cookies from should be plain HTTP headers 44(Set-Cookie style) or the Netscape/Mozilla cookie file format. 45 46The file specified with --cookie is only used as input. No cookies are written 47to that file. To store cookies, use the --cookie-jar option. 48 49If you use the Set-Cookie file format and do not specify a domain then the 50cookie is not sent since the domain never matches. To address this, set a 51domain in Set-Cookie line (doing that includes subdomains) or preferably: use 52the Netscape format. 53 54Users often want to both read cookies from a file and write updated cookies 55back to a file, so using both --cookie and --cookie-jar in the same command 56line is common. 57 58If curl is built with PSL (**Public Suffix List**) support, it detects and 59discards cookies that are specified for such suffix domains that should not be 60allowed to have cookies. If curl is *not* built with PSL support, it has no 61ability to stop super cookies. 62
