ASP Request Object Cookies Collection

The Cookies collection allows you to retrieve the values of the cookies sent in an HTTP request.

Syntax: ASP Request Object Cookies Collection

Request.Cookies(cookie)[(key)|.attribute]

Parameters: ASP Request Object Cookies Collection

Specifies the cookie whose value should be received.

key

An optional parameter used to retrieve subkey values from cookie dictionaries.

attribute

Specifies information about the cookie itself. The attribute value can be:

Name	Value
HasKeys	Read-only. Specifies whether the cookie contains keys.

Remarks: ASP Request Object Cookies Collection

Access the subkeys of a cookie dictionary by including a value for key. If a cookie dictionary is accessed without specifying a key, all of the keys are returned as a single query string. For example, if MyCookie has two keys, First and Second, and you do not specify either of these keys in a call to Request.Cookies, the following string is returned.

First=firstkeyvalue&Second=secondkeyvalue

If two cookies with the same name are sent by the client browser, Request.Cookies returns the one with the deeper path structure. For example, if two cookies had the same name but one had a path attribute of /www/ and the other of /www/home/, the client browser would send both cookies to the /www/home/ directory, but Request.Cookies would only return the second cookie.

To determine whether a cookie is a cookie dictionary (whether the cookie has keys), use the following script.

<%= Request.Cookies("myCookie").HasKeys %>

If myCookie is a cookie dictionary, the preceding value evaluates to TRUE; otherwise, it evaluates to FALSE.

You can use an iterator to cycle through all the cookies in the Cookie collection, or all the keys in a cookie. However, iterating through keys on a cookie that does not have keys will not produce any output. You can avoid this situation by first checking to see whether a cookie has keys by using the HasKeys attribute.

Examples: ASP Request Object Cookies Collection

The first example shows how to print the entire cookie collection:

'Print out the entire cookie collection.

For Each cookie in Request.Cookies

If Not cookie.HasKeys Then

'Print out the cookie string

<%= cookie %> = <%= Request.Cookies(cookie) %>

Else

'Print out the cookie collection

For Each key in Request.Cookies(cookie) %>

<%= cookie %> (<%= key %>) = <%= Request.Cookies(cookie)(key) %>

End If

The next example prints the value of a cookie variable called "myCookie":

<%= Request.Cookies("myCookie") %>