---
c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
Title: CURLOPT_COOKIE
Section: 3
Source: libcurl
See-also:
  - CURLINFO_COOKIELIST (3)
  - CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE (3)
  - CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR (3)
  - CURLOPT_COOKIELIST (3)
  - CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER (3)
Protocol:
  - HTTP
Added-in: 7.1
---

# NAME

CURLOPT_COOKIE - HTTP Cookie header

# SYNOPSIS

~~~c
#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_COOKIE, char *cookie);
~~~

# DESCRIPTION

Pass a pointer to a null-terminated string as parameter. It is used to set one
or more cookies in the HTTP request. The format of the string should be
NAME=CONTENTS, where NAME is the cookie name and CONTENTS is what the cookie
should contain.

To set multiple cookies, set them all using a single option concatenated like
this: "name1=content1; name2=content2;" etc. libcurl does not syntax check the
data but assumes the application gives it what it needs to send.

This option sets the cookie header explicitly in the outgoing request(s). If
multiple requests are done due to authentication, followed redirections or
similar, they all get this cookie passed on.

The cookies set by this option are separate from the internal cookie storage
held by the cookie engine and they are not modified by it. If you enable
the cookie engine and either you have imported a cookie of the same name (e.g.
'foo') or the server has set one, it has no effect on the cookies you set
here. A request to the server sends both the 'foo' held by the cookie engine
and the 'foo' held by this option. To set a cookie that is instead held by the
cookie engine and can be modified by the server, use CURLOPT_COOKIELIST(3).

Since this custom cookie is appended to the Cookie: header in addition to any
cookies set by the cookie engine, there is a risk that the header ends up too
long and thereby getting the entire request rejected by the server.

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

Using this option multiple times makes the last set string override the
previous ones. Set it to NULL to disable its use again.

This option does not enable the cookie engine. Use CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE(3) or
CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR(3) to enable parsing and sending cookies automatically.

# DEFAULT

NULL, no cookies

# %PROTOCOLS%

# EXAMPLE

~~~c
int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode result;
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com");

    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_COOKIE, "tool=curl; fun=yes;");

    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}
~~~

# %AVAILABILITY%

# RETURN VALUE

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.

CURLE_OK (0) means everything was OK, non-zero means an error occurred, see
libcurl-errors(3).
