Question regarding : cookie.getMaxAge()

[Khushbu Ghodasara]

Servlet that creates and sets the cookie :

  
 
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.io.*;
 
public class CookieTest extends HttpServlet {
 
public void doPost (HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) 
throws IOException, ServletException {

response.setContentType("text/html");
 
String name = request.getParameter("username");
 
Cookie cookie = new Cookie("username", name);
 
[B]cookie.setMaxAge(30*60);[/B]
 
response.addCookie(cookie);
 
RequestDispatcher view = request.getRequestDispatcher("cookieresult.jsp");
view.forward(request, response);
}
}
  

and the servlet that gets the cookie :

   
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.io.*;
 
public class CheckCookie extends HttpServlet {

public void doGet (HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) 
throws IOException, ServletException {

response.setContentType("text/html");
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
 
Cookie [] cookies = request.getKookies();
 
if(cookies != null) {
for(Cookie cookie : cookies) {
if(cookie.getName().equals("username")) {
String userName = cookie.getValue();
out.println("<br><br>Hello " + userName);
out.println("<br><br>the maximum age of this cookie is : " + [B]cookie.getMaxAge()[/B]);
break;
}
}
} else out.println("there were no cookies set");
}
}
 
 

Here, I'm setting the maximum age for the cookie as 30*60 (30 minutes) but when I reach the second code , where I'm retrieving the cookie info, it gives me the maximum age as -1, that means cookie is not being stored.

I am not able to understand the output. What am I missing here?
[ July 13, 2008: Message edited by: Khushbu Ghodasara ]

[Dee Brown]

In your code you state, "Cookie [] cookies = request.getKookies();", so the code cannot compile. Can you supply the actual code that is being used?

[Khushbu Ghodasara]

This is the actual code, but here it is not allowed to write getKookie() (read first K as C), due to security reasons, so they asked me to replace C with K in that particular method.

[Dee Brown]

According to the api for the cookie class, "The browser returns cookies to the servlet by adding fields to HTTP request headers."

An associated rfc (2109) states:

4.3.4 Sending Cookies to the Origin Server

When it sends a request to an origin server, the user agent sends a
Cookie request header to the origin server...

The syntax for the header is:

cookie = "Cookie:" cookie-version
1*((";" | ",") cookie-value)
cookie-value = NAME "=" VALUE [";" path] [";" domain]
cookie-version = "$Version" "=" value
NAME = attr
VALUE = value
path = "$Path" "=" value
domain = "$Domain" "=" value

It would therefore appear the maxAge value you are retrieving is one the container supplies when it instantiates a cookie it receives from the client. Since the setting of maxAge is the setting of a value that is used by the client, the fact that the "-1" is retrieved is not all that important.

You can verify that the maxAge is not in the request header using the Live HttpHeaders plugin/addon in the Firefox browser.