Hi

Every now and then someone figures out that applications don't have very much
control of what cookies libcurl receives or sends away. You pretty much have
to let it control all cookies as it sees fit, or no cookies at all. If
libcurl handles the cookies, the application doesn't know which cookies that
exist.

So, without rushing into anything, here follows my suggested approach on how
to add a cookie interface to a future libcurl.

This work depends a whole lot on your feedback.

/****************************************************************************
   libcurl cookie interface suggestion draft
   Date: 2003-06-18 */

/* This is the cookie struct used for all communication in/out of libcurl. It
 * will not be used internally, but only for representing a cookie that is
 * known and stored differently within libcurl.
 */

struct curl_cookie {
  struct curl_cookie *next; /* if non-NULL, points to the next cookie */
  unsigned char *name;
  unsigned char *value;
  unsigned char *domain; /* or NULL */
  unsigned char *path; /* or NULL */
  bool secure;
  time_t expires; /* 0 means "session-cookie" */
  void *hidden; /* refers to the corresponding cookie information
                            held by libcurl in the curl handle memory */
};

/* ------------------------------------------------------------------------

curl_easy_cookie(CURL *handle,
                 CURLCOOKIE option,
                 ...);

Options include:

 SAVE - write down all cookies to the specified cookie jar now.

 LOAD - load new cookies from the specified file

 ADD - pass a pointer to a curl_cookie struct, of the cookie to add. All
info
        will be copied from the struct.

 DEL - given a libcurl cookie 'hidden' pointer (see the cookie struct), the
        corresponding cookie is removed. If NULL is given, ALL known cookies
        are removed.

 GET - TWO ARGUMENTS required!

        First argument: Pass in a pointer to a curl_cookie struct. The
        cookie(s) matching the given information is returned in a linked list
        of curl_cookie structs, stored in the pointer the second argument
        points to. Example:

          struct curl_cookie mystruct; [fill in]
          struct curl_cookie *results; [get results here]

          curl_easy_cookie(curl, CURLCOOKIE_GET, &mystruct, &results);

        If the first argument is NULL, all known cookies will be returned.

        Will the data pointers be pointing to internal strings or are they
        separately allocated? It affects how applications can use the
strings.

        This will probably require a separate FREE operation to free an
        earlier retrieved list of cookies. Consider how.

 FUNC - set a function pointer that is called each time a cookie is received
        from the network by libcurl, the function should match this
        prototype:

        int func(CURL *handle, struct curl_cookie *cookie, void *userp)

        By returning 1, libcurl will not store the cookie. Returning 0 will
        make libcurl proceed as normal. (Other return-codes are considered
        reserved for future use.)

 DATA - set whatever userdata you want the FUNC callback to receive in its
        userp argument.

****************************************************************************/

-- 
 Daniel Stenberg -- curl: been grokking URLs since 1998
-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by: INetU
Attention Web Developers & Consultants: Become An INetU Hosting Partner.
Refer Dedicated Servers. We Manage Them. You Get 10% Monthly Commission!
INetU Dedicated Managed Hosting http://www.inetu.net/partner/index.php