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CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE(3)               libcurl              CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE(3)


NAME

       CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE - file name to read cookies from


SYNOPSIS

       #include <curl/curl.h>

       CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, char *filename);


DESCRIPTION

       Pass a pointer to a null-terminated string as parameter. It should
       point to the file name of your file holding cookie data to read. The
       cookie data can be in either the old Netscape / Mozilla cookie data
       format or just regular HTTP headers (Set-Cookie style) dumped to a
       file.

       It also enables the cookie engine, making libcurl parse and send
       cookies on subsequent requests with this handle.

       By passing the empty string ("") to this option, you enable the cookie
       engine without reading any initial cookies. If you tell libcurl the
       file name is "-" (just a single minus sign), libcurl will instead read
       from stdin.

       This option only reads cookies. To make libcurl write cookies to file,
       see CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR(3).

       If you use the Set-Cookie file format and do not specify a domain then
       the cookie is not sent since the domain will never match. To address
       this, set a domain in Set-Cookie line (doing that will include sub-
       domains) or preferably: use the Netscape format.

       If you use this option multiple times, you just add more files to read.
       Subsequent files will add more cookies.

       The application does not have to keep the string around after setting
       this option.

       Setting this option to NULL will (since 7.77.0) explicitly disable the
       cookie engine and clear the list of files to read cookies from.


SECURITY

       This document previously mentioned how specifying a non-existing file
       can also enable the cookie engine. While true, we strongly advise
       against using that method as it is too hard to be sure what files will
       stay that way in the long run.


DEFAULT

       NULL


PROTOCOLS

       HTTP


EXAMPLE

       CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
       if(curl) {
         curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com/foo.bin");

         /* get cookies from an existing file */
         curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "/tmp/cookies.txt");

         ret = curl_easy_perform(curl);

         curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
       }

Cookie file format
       The cookie file format and general cookie concepts in curl are
       described online here: https://curl.se/docs/http-cookies.html


AVAILABILITY

       As long as HTTP is supported


RETURN VALUE

       Returns CURLE_OK if HTTP is supported, and CURLE_UNKNOWN_OPTION if not.


SEE ALSO

       CURLOPT_COOKIE(3), CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR(3),

ibcurl 8.1.2                    April 26, 2023           CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE(3)

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