How do I create and read a value from cookie with javascript?

Question

How can I create and read a value from a cookie in JavaScript?

Answer 1

Object-Oriented Approach

The manipulation of cookies is a task ideally suited to an object-oriented approach, not a functional one, so I wrote a Cookie class that has static and instance methods that can be used to interact with cookies as objects rather than as strings. I've put this up on GitHub as well, and will add any updates to it there.

https://github.com/kloddant/cookie

class Cookie {
    
    static list = [];
    static index = {};
    
    constructor (kwargs={}) {
        this.name = kwargs["name"];
        this.value = kwargs["value"] ?? null;
        console.assert(kwargs.hasOwnProperty('name'));
        console.assert(kwargs.hasOwnProperty('value'));
        let days;
        
        if (kwargs.hasOwnProperty("path")) {
            this.path = kwargs["path"] ?? "/";
        }
        if (kwargs.hasOwnProperty("domain")) {
            this.domain = kwargs["domain"] ?? location.hostname;
        }
        if (kwargs.hasOwnProperty("expires")) {
            this.expires = kwargs["expires"] ?? null;
            console.assert(this.expires instanceof Date || this.expires == null);
        }
        if (kwargs.hasOwnProperty("days")) {
            let days = kwargs["days"] ?? null;
            console.assert(Number.isInteger(days) || days == null);
        }
                
        if (days && !this.expires) {
            this.expires = new Date();
            this.expires.setTime(this.expires.getTime() + (days*24*60*60*1000));
        }
    }
    
    save () {
        let cookie_dict = {};
        cookie_dict[this.name] = this.value || "";
        cookie_dict["Path"] = this.path || "/";
        if (this.domain) {
            cookie_dict["Domain"] = this.domain || location.hostname;
        }
        if (this.expires) {
            cookie_dict["Expires"] = this.expires.toUTCString();
        }
        let cookie_string = "";
        for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(cookie_dict)) {
            cookie_string += key + "=" + value + "; ";
        }
        console.log(cookie_string.trim());
        document.cookie = cookie_string.trim();
        return this;
    }
    
    delete (kwargs={}) {
        if (kwargs.hasOwnProperty("path")) {
            this.path = kwargs["path"];
        }
        if (kwargs.hasOwnProperty("domain")) {
            this.domain = kwargs["domain"];
        }
        this.value = "";
        this.expires = new Date();
        this.expires.setTime(this.expires.getTime() - (24*60*60*1000));
        this.save();
    }
    
    static create (kwargs={}) {
        let cookie = new this(kwargs);
        cookie.save();
        return cookie;
    }
        
    static fetch() {
        let parts = document.cookie.split(";").map((part) => part.trim().split("="));
        this.list = [];
        this.index = {};
        for (let part of parts) {
            let cookie = new this({"name": part[0], "value": part[1]});
            this.list.push(cookie);
            this.index[cookie.name] = cookie;
        }
    }
    
    static all() {
        this.fetch();
        return this.list;
    }
    
    static get(name) {
        this.fetch();
        return this.index[name] ?? null;
    }
    
}

Usage

Creating a Cookie

Example

var cookie = Cookie.create({"name": "", "value": ""});

Getting an Existing Cookie

Example

var cookie = Cookie.get("example");

Saving/Updating a Cookie

Example

cookie.value = 1;
cookie.save();

Deleting a Cookie

Example

cookie.delete();

Answer 2

You can use my cookie ES module for get/set/remove cookie.

Usage:

In your head tag, include the following code:

<script src="https://raw.githack.com/anhr/commonNodeJS/master/cookieNodeJS/build/cookie.js"></script>

or

<script src="https://raw.githack.com/anhr/commonNodeJS/master/cookieNodeJS/build/cookie.min.js"></script>

Now you can use window.cookie for store user information in web pages.

cookie.isEnabled()

Is the cookie enabled in your web browser?

returns {boolean} true if cookie enabled.

Example

if ( cookie.isEnabled() )
    console.log('cookie is enabled on your browser');
else
    console.error('cookie is disabled on your browser');

cookie.set( name, value )

Set a cookie.

name: cookie name.
value: cookie value.

Example

cookie.set('age', 25);

cookie.get( name[, defaultValue] );

get a cookie.

name: cookie name.
defaultValue: cookie default value. Default is undefined.
returns cookie value or defaultValue if cookie was not found

Example

var age = cookie.get('age', 25);

cookie.remove( name );

Remove cookie.

name: cookie name.

Example

cookie.remove( 'age' );

Example of usage

Answer 3

For reading simple querystrings, this one-liner might work for you in recent versions of JavaScript:

let cookies = Object.fromEntries(document.cookie.split(';').map(i=>i.trim().split('=')));

And now you have a JavaScript Object with keys and values.

For creating, you can try this one:

let cookieObject = {foo: 'bar', ping: "pong"}
Object.entries(cookieObject).map((e)=>`${e[0]}=${e[1]}`).join(';')

Answer 4

Performance benchmark

Comparison of ES6 versions of some popular getCookie functions (with my improvements): https://www.measurethat.net/Benchmarks/Show/16012/5/getcookie-for-vs-forof-vs-indexof-vs-find-vs-reduce

TL;DR: for...of version seams to be fastest for real-life cookies data :)

Important: document.cookie can provide duplicated cookie names if there are cookies with the same name for path=/ and current page path (eg. path=/faq). But the cookie for the current path will always be the first in the string, so be aware of this when using the reduce() version from the other answer provided here (it returns the last found cookie instead of the first one).

Fixed reduce() version is further in my answer.

For..of version:

Fastest for the real-life benchmark data set (10 cookies with long values). But performance results are almost the same as with vanilla for loop and with Array.find(), so use which you like :)

function getCookieForOf(name) {
  const nameEQ = name + '=';
  for (const cookie of document.cookie.split('; ')) {
    if (cookie.indexOf(nameEQ) === 0) {
      const value = cookie.substring(nameEQ.length);
      return decodeURIComponent(value); // returns first found cookie
    }
  }
  return null;
}

IndexOf version

Incredibly fast in the artificial test set of 1000 cookies with short values (because it doesn't create an array with 1000 records). To be honest, I consider there could be a bug in the test code that makes this version so crazy fast (if you would find some, pls let me know). Anyway, it's rather not probable to have 1000 cookies in the real App ;)

It's slow for the real-world test data set with 10 long cookies.

function getCookieIndexOf(name) {
  const nameEQ = name + '=';
  const cookies = document.cookie;
  const cookieStart = cookies.indexOf(nameEQ);
  if (cookieStart !== -1) {
    const cookieValueStart = cookieStart + nameEQ.length;
    const cookieEnd = cookies.indexOf(';', cookieValueStart);
    const value = cookies.substring(
      cookieValueStart,
      cookieEnd !== -1 ? cookieEnd : undefined
    );
    return decodeURIComponent(value); // returns first found cookie
  }
  return null;
}

Array.find() version

function getCookieFind(name) {
  const nameEQ = name + '=';
  const foundCookie = document.cookie
    .split('; ')
    .find(c => c.indexOf(nameEQ) === 0); // returns first found cookie
  if (foundCookie) {
    return decodeURIComponent(foundCookie.substring(nameEQ.length));
  }
  return null;
}

Vanilla, old-school, for-loop version ;)

function getCookieFor(name) {
    const nameEQ = name + "=";
    const ca = cookies.split('; ');
    for(let i=0; i < ca.length; i++) {
        const c = ca[i];
        if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) === 0) {
          const value = c.substring(nameEQ.length);
          return decodeURIComponent(value); // returns first found cookie
        }
    }
    return null;
}

// ES5 version:
function getCookieFor(name) {
    var nameEQ = name + "=";
    var ca = cookies.split('; ');
    for(var i=0;i < ca.length;i++) {
        var c = ca[i];
        if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) === 0) {
          var value = c.substring(nameEQ.length);
          return decodeURIComponent(value); // returns first found cookie
        }
    }
    return null;
}

Array.reduce() version

My fixed version of this answer from @artnikpro - returns the first found cookie, so works better with duplicated cookie names for the current path (e.g. path=/faq) and path=/.

This version is the slowest one in all performance tests, so IMHO should be avoided.

function getCookieReduce(name) {
  return document.cookie.split('; ').reduce((r, v) => {
    const [n, ...val] = v.split('='); // cookie value can contain "="
    if(r) return r; // returns first found cookie
    return n === name ? decodeURIComponent(val.join('=')) : r; // returns last found cookie (overwrites)
  }, '');
}

You can run benchmarks by yourself here: https://www.measurethat.net/Benchmarks/Show/16012/5/getcookie-for-vs-forof-vs-indexof-vs-find-vs-reduce

---

setCookie() TypeScript function

Here is also my version of the function to set a cookie with encodeURIComponent, TypeScript, and SameSite option (which will be required by Firefox soon):

function setCookie(
  name: string,
  value: string = '',
  days: number | false = false, // session length if not provided
  path: string = '/', // provide an empty string '' to set for current path (managed by a browser)
  sameSite: 'none' | 'lax' | 'strict' = 'lax', // required by Firefox
  isSecure?: boolean
) {
  let expires = '';
  if (days) {
    const date = new Date(
      Date.now() + days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000
    ).toUTCString();
    expires = '; expires=' + date;
  }
  const secure = isSecure || sameSite === 'none' ? `; Secure` : '';
  const encodedValue = encodeURIComponent(value);
  document.cookie = `${name}=${encodedValue}${expires}; path=${path}; SameSite=${sameSite}${secure}`;
}

Google Chrome Cookie Storage API

Thanks to @oncode answer it's worth mentioning that the Google Chrome team has proposed some standardization (finally! It's really ridiculous that we still don't have any commonly accepted API for cookies) with asynchronous Cookie Storage API (available in Google Chrome starting from version 87): https://wicg.github.io/cookie-store/

Unfortunately, it's still unofficial and isn't even under W3C consideration nor ES proposal: github.com/tc39/proposals

Such a shame we still don't have any standard API for cookies...

Fortunately, we have cookie-store polyfill for other browsers as npm package (gitHub), which is only 1.7kB Gzipped ;)

Answer 5

I've used accepted answer of this thread many times already. It's great piece of code: Simple and usable. But I usually use babel and ES6 and modules, so if you are like me, here is code to copy for faster developing with ES6

Accepted answer rewritten as module with ES6:

export const createCookie = ({name, value, days}) => {
  let expires;
  if (days) {
    let date = new Date();
    date.setTime(date.getTime() + (days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
    expires = '; expires=' + date.toUTCString();
  } else {
    expires = '';
  }
  document.cookie = name + '=' + value + expires + '; path=/';
};

export const getCookie = ({name}) => {
  if (document.cookie.length > 0) {
    let c_start = document.cookie.indexOf(name + '=');
    if (c_start !== -1) {
      c_start = c_start + name.length + 1;
      let c_end = document.cookie.indexOf(';', c_start);
      if (c_end === -1) {
        c_end = document.cookie.length;
      }
      return unescape(document.cookie.substring(c_start, c_end));
    }
  }
  return '';
};

And after this you can simply import it as any module (path of course may vary):

import {createCookie, getCookie} from './../helpers/Cookie';

Answer 6

Mozilla created a simple framework for reading and writing cookies with full unicode support along with examples of how to use it.

Once included on the page, you can set a cookie:

docCookies.setItem(name, value);

read a cookie:

docCookies.getItem(name);

or delete a cookie:

docCookies.removeItem(name);

For example:

// sets a cookie called 'myCookie' with value 'Chocolate Chip'
docCookies.setItem('myCookie', 'Chocolate Chip');

// reads the value of a cookie called 'myCookie' and assigns to variable
var myCookie = docCookies.getItem('myCookie');

// removes the cookie called 'myCookie'
docCookies.removeItem('myCookie');

See more examples and details on Mozilla's document.cookie page.

A version of this simple js file is on github.

Answer 7

Through a interface similar to sessionStorage and localStorage:

const cookieStorage = {
  getItem: (key) {
    const cookies = document.cookie.split(';')
      .map(cookie => cookie.split('='))
      .reduce(
        (accumulation, [key, value]) => ({...accumulation, [key.trim()]: value}),
        {}
      )
    
    return cookies[key]
  },
  setItem: (key, value) {
    document.cookie = `${key}=${value}`
  },
}

Its usage cookieStorage.setItem('', '') and cookieStorage.getItem('').

Answer 8

Very short ES6 functions using template literals. Be aware that you need to encode/decode the values by yourself but it'll work out of the box for simplier purposes like storing version numbers.

const getCookie = (cookieName) => {
  return (document.cookie.match(`(^|;) *${cookieName}=([^;]*)`)||[])[2]
}
  
const setCookie = (cookieName, value, days=360, path='/') => {
  let expires = (new Date(Date.now()+ days*86400*1000)).toUTCString();
  document.cookie = `${cookieName}=${value};expires=${expires};path=${path};`
}

const deleteCookie = (cookieName) => {
  document.cookie = `${cookieName}=;expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT;path=/;`;
}  

Answer 9

The chrome team has proposed a new way of managing cookies asynchronous with the Cookie Storage API (available in Google Chrome starting from version 87): https://wicg.github.io/cookie-store/

Use it already today with a polyfill for the other browsers: https://github.com/mkay581/cookie-store

// load polyfill
import 'cookie-store';

// set a cookie
await cookieStore.set('name', 'value');
// get a cookie
const savedValue = await cookieStore.get('name');

Answer 10

I use the following functions, which I have written by taking the best I have found from various sources and weeded out some bugs or discrepancies.

The function setCookie does not have advanced options, just the simple stuff, but the code is easy to understand, which is always a plus:

function setCookie(name, value, daysToLive = 3650) { // 10 years default
  let cookie = name + "=" + encodeURIComponent(value);
  if (typeof daysToLive === "number") {
    cookie += "; max-age=" + (daysToLive * 24 * 60 * 60);
    document.cookie = cookie + ";path=/";
  }
}
function getCookie(name) {
  let cookieArr = document.cookie.split(";");
  for (let i = 0; i < cookieArr.length; i++) {
    let cookiePair = cookieArr[i].split("=");
    if (name == cookiePair[0].trim()) {
      return decodeURIComponent(cookiePair[1].trim());
    }
  }
  return undefined;
}
function deleteCookie(name) {
  setCookie(name, '', -1);
}

Answer 11

ES7, using a regex for get(). Based on MDN

const Cookie = {
    get: name => {
        let c = document.cookie.match(`(?:(?:^|.*; *)${name} *= *([^;]*).*$)|^.*$`)[1]
        if (c) return decodeURIComponent(c)
    },
    set: (name, value, opts = {}) => {
        /*If options contains days then we're configuring max-age*/
        if (opts.days) {
            opts['max-age'] = opts.days * 60 * 60 * 24;

            /*Deleting days from options to pass remaining opts to cookie settings*/
            delete opts.days 
        }

        /*Configuring options to cookie standard by reducing each property*/
        opts = Object.entries(opts).reduce(
            (accumulatedStr, [k, v]) => `${accumulatedStr}; ${k}=${v}`, ''
        )

        /*Finally, creating the key*/
        document.cookie = name + '=' + encodeURIComponent(value) + opts
    },
    delete: (name, opts) => Cookie.set(name, '', {'max-age': -1, ...opts}) 
    // path & domain must match cookie being deleted 
}

---

Cookie.set('user', 'Jim', {path: '/', days: 10}) 
// Set the path to top level (instead of page) and expiration to 10 days (instead of session)

Usage - Cookie.get(name, value [, options]):
options supports all standard cookie options and adds "days":

• path: '/' - any absolute path. Default: current document location,
• domain: 'sub.example.com' - may not start with dot. Default: current host without subdomain.
• secure: true - Only serve cookie over https. Default: false.
• days: 2 - days till cookie expires. Default: End of session.
  Alternative ways of setting expiration:
  • expires: 'Sun, 18 Feb 2018 16:23:42 GMT' - date of expiry as a GMT string.
    Current date can be gotten with: new Date(Date.now()).toUTCString()
  • 'max-age': 30 - same as days, but in seconds instead of days.

Other answers use "expires" instead of "max-age" to support older IE versions. This method requires ES7, so IE7 is out anyways (this is not a big deal).

Note: Funny characters such as "=" and "{:}" are supported as cookie values, and the regex handles leading and trailing whitespace (from other libs).
If you would like to store objects, either encode them before and after with and JSON.stringify and JSON.parse, edit the above, or add another method. Eg:

Cookie.getJSON = name => JSON.parse(Cookie.get(name))
Cookie.setJSON = (name, value, opts) => Cookie.set(name, JSON.stringify(value), opts);

Answer 12

Here are functions you can use for creating and retrieving cookies.

function createCookie(name, value, days) {
    var expires;
    if (days) {
        var date = new Date();
        date.setTime(date.getTime() + (days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
        expires = "; expires=" + date.toGMTString();
    }
    else {
        expires = "";
    }
    document.cookie = name + "=" + value + expires + "; path=/";
}

function getCookie(c_name) {
    if (document.cookie.length > 0) {
        c_start = document.cookie.indexOf(c_name + "=");
        if (c_start != -1) {
            c_start = c_start + c_name.length + 1;
            c_end = document.cookie.indexOf(";", c_start);
            if (c_end == -1) {
                c_end = document.cookie.length;
            }
            return unescape(document.cookie.substring(c_start, c_end));
        }
    }
    return "";
}

Answer 13

A simple read

var getCookie = function (name) {
    var valueStart = document.cookie.indexOf(name + "=") + name.length + 1;
    var valueEnd = document.cookie.indexOf(";", valueStart); 
    return document.cookie.slice(valueStart, valueEnd)
}

Answer 14

Here is the example from w3chools that was mentioned.

function setCookie(cname, cvalue, exdays) {
    var d = new Date();
    d.setTime(d.getTime() + (exdays*24*60*60*1000));
    var expires = "expires="+ d.toUTCString();
    document.cookie = cname + "=" + cvalue + ";" + expires + ";path=/";
}

function getCookie(cname) {
    var name = cname + "=";
    var decodedCookie = decodeURIComponent(document.cookie);
    var ca = decodedCookie.split(';');
    for(var i = 0; i <ca.length; i++) {
        var c = ca[i];
        while (c.charAt(0) == ' ') {
            c = c.substring(1);
        }
        if (c.indexOf(name) == 0) {
            return c.substring(name.length, c.length);
        }
    }
    return "";
}

Answer 15

A cheeky and simple way of reading a cookie could be something like:

let username, id; 
eval(document.cookie); 
console.log(username + ", " + id); // John Doe, 123

This could be used if you know your cookie contains something like: username="John Doe"; id=123;. Note that a string would need quotes in the cookie. Not the recommended way probably, but works for testing/learning.

Answer 16

I have written simple cookieUtils, it has three functions for creating the cookie, reading the cookie and deleting the cookie.

var CookieUtils = {
    createCookie: function (name, value, expireTime) {
        expireTime = !!expireTime ? expireTime : (15 * 60 * 1000); // Default 15 min
        var date = new Date();
        date.setTime(date.getTime() + expireTime);
        var expires = "; expires=" + date.toGMTString();
        document.cookie = name + "=" + value + expires + "; path=/";
    },
    getCookie: function (name) {
        var value = "; " + document.cookie;
        var parts = value.split("; " + name + "=");
        if (parts.length == 2) {
            return parts.pop().split(";").shift();
        }
    },
    deleteCookie: function(name) {
        document.cookie = name +'=; Path=/; Expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT;';
    }
};

Answer 17

Minimalistic and full featured ES6 approach:

const setCookie = (name, value, days = 7, path = '/') => {
  const expires = new Date(Date.now() + days * 864e5).toUTCString()
  document.cookie = name + '=' + encodeURIComponent(value) + '; expires=' + expires + '; path=' + path
}

const getCookie = (name) => {
  return document.cookie.split('; ').reduce((r, v) => {
    const parts = v.split('=')
    return parts[0] === name ? decodeURIComponent(parts[1]) : r
  }, '')
}

const deleteCookie = (name, path) => {
  setCookie(name, '', -1, path)
}

Answer 18

JQuery Cookies

or plain Javascript:

function setCookie(c_name,value,exdays)
{
   var exdate=new Date();
   exdate.setDate(exdate.getDate() + exdays);
   var c_value=escape(value) + ((exdays==null) ? "" : ("; expires="+exdate.toUTCString()));
   document.cookie=c_name + "=" + c_value;
}

function getCookie(c_name)
{
   var i,x,y,ARRcookies=document.cookie.split(";");
   for (i=0; i<ARRcookies.length; i++)
   {
      x=ARRcookies[i].substr(0,ARRcookies[i].indexOf("="));
      y=ARRcookies[i].substr(ARRcookies[i].indexOf("=")+1);
      x=x.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g,"");
      if (x==c_name)
      {
        return unescape(y);
      }
   }
}

Answer 19

I've used js-cookie to success.

<script src="/path/to/js.cookie.js"></script>
<script>
  Cookies.set('foo', 'bar');
  Cookies.get('foo');
</script>

Answer 20

Simple way to read cookies in ES6.

function getCookies() {
    var cookies = {};
    for (let cookie of document.cookie.split('; ')) {
        let [name, value] = cookie.split("=");
        cookies[name] = decodeURIComponent(value);
    }
    console.dir(cookies);
}

Answer 21

For those who need save objects like {foo: 'bar'}, I share my edited version of @KevinBurke's answer. I've added JSON.stringify and JSON.parse, that's all.

cookie = {

    set: function (name, value, days) {
        if (days) {
            var date = new Date();
            date.setTime(date.getTime() + (days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
            var expires = "; expires=" + date.toGMTString();
        }
        else
            var expires = "";
        document.cookie = name + "=" + JSON.stringify(value) + expires + "; path=/";
    },

    get : function(name){
        var nameEQ = name + "=",
            ca = document.cookie.split(';');

        for(var i=0;i < ca.length;i++) {
          var c = ca[i];
          while (c.charAt(0)==' ') c = c.substring(1,c.length);
            if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) 
              return  JSON.parse(c.substring(nameEQ.length,c.length));
        }

        return null;
    }

}

So, now you can do things like this:

cookie.set('cookie_key', {foo: 'bar'}, 30);

cookie.get('cookie_key'); // {foo: 'bar'}

cookie.set('cookie_key', 'baz', 30);

cookie.get('cookie_key'); // 'baz'

Answer 22

Here's a code to Get, Set and Delete Cookie in JavaScript.

function getCookie(name) {
    name = name + "=";
    var cookies = document.cookie.split(';');
    for(var i = 0; i <cookies.length; i++) {
        var cookie = cookies[i];
        while (cookie.charAt(0)==' ') {
            cookie = cookie.substring(1);
        }
        if (cookie.indexOf(name) == 0) {
            return cookie.substring(name.length,cookie.length);
        }
    }
    return "";
}

function setCookie(name, value, expirydays) {
 var d = new Date();
 d.setTime(d.getTime() + (expirydays*24*60*60*1000));
 var expires = "expires="+ d.toUTCString();
 document.cookie = name + "=" + value + "; " + expires;
}

function deleteCookie(name){
  setCookie(name,"",-1);
}

Source: http://mycodingtricks.com/snippets/javascript/javascript-cookies/

Answer 23

I use this object. Values are encoded, so it's necessary to consider it when reading or writing from server side.

cookie = (function() {

/**
 * Sets a cookie value. seconds parameter is optional
 */
var set = function(name, value, seconds) {
    var expires = seconds ? '; expires=' + new Date(new Date().getTime() + seconds * 1000).toGMTString() : '';
    document.cookie = name + '=' + encodeURIComponent(value) + expires + '; path=/';
};

var map = function() {
    var map = {};
    var kvs = document.cookie.split('; ');
    for (var i = 0; i < kvs.length; i++) {
        var kv = kvs[i].split('=');
        map[kv[0]] = decodeURIComponent(kv[1]);
    }
    return map;
};

var get = function(name) {
    return map()[name];
};

var remove = function(name) {
    set(name, '', -1);
};

return {
    set: set,
    get: get,
    remove: remove,
    map: map
};

})();