curl/docs/libcurl/opts/CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE.3

.\" **************************************************************************
.\" *                                  _   _ ____  _
.\" *  Project                     ___| | | |  _ \| |
.\" *                             / __| | | | |_) | |
.\" *                            | (__| |_| |  _ <| |___
.\" *                             \___|\___/|_| \_\_____|
.\" *
.\" * Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
.\" *
.\" * This software is licensed as described in the file COPYING, which
.\" * you should have received as part of this distribution. The terms
.\" * are also available at https://curl.se/docs/copyright.html.
.\" *
.\" * You may opt to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute and/or sell
.\" * copies of the Software, and permit persons to whom the Software is
.\" * furnished to do so, under the terms of the COPYING file.
.\" *
.\" * This software is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
.\" * KIND, either express or implied.
.\" *
.\" * SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
.\" *
.\" **************************************************************************
.\"
.TH CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE 3 "17 Jun 2014" libcurl libcurl
.SH NAME
CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE \- file name to read cookies from
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, char *filename);
.fi
.SH 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 \fBreads\fP cookies. To make libcurl write cookies to file,
see \fICURLOPT_COOKIEJAR(3)\fP.

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.
.SH 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.
.SH DEFAULT
NULL
.SH PROTOCOLS
HTTP
.SH EXAMPLE
.nf
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);
}
.fi
.SH "Cookie file format"
The cookie file format and general cookie concepts in curl are described
online here: https://curl.se/docs/http-cookies.html
.SH AVAILABILITY
As long as HTTP is supported
.SH RETURN VALUE
Returns CURLE_OK if HTTP is supported, and CURLE_UNKNOWN_OPTION if not.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR CURLOPT_COOKIE "(3), " CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR "(3), "