cookies - iPhone: NSHTTPCookie is not saved across app restarts

Question

In my iPhone app, I want to be able to reuse the same server-side session when my app restarts. A session on the server is identified by a cookie, which is sent on each request. When I restart the app, that cookie is gone and I can't use the same session anymore.

What I noticed when I used the NSHTTPCookieStorage to look up the cookie I got from the server, is that [cookie isSessionOnly] returns YES. I get the impression that this is why cookies are not saved across restarts of my app. What would I have to do to make my cookie NOT session only? What HTTP headers do I have to send from the server?

Answer 1

You can save the cookie by saving its properties dictionary and then restoring as a new cookiebefore you go to re-connect.

Save:

NSArray* allCookies = [[NSHTTPCookieStorage sharedHTTPCookieStorage] cookiesForURL:[NSURL URLWithString:URL]];
for (NSHTTPCookie *cookie in allCookies) {
    if ([cookie.name isEqualToString:MY_COOKIE]) { 
        NSMutableDictionary* cookieDictionary = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithDictionary:[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] dictionaryForKey:PREF_KEY]];
        [cookieDictionary setValue:cookie.properties forKey:URL];
        [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setObject:cookieDictionary forKey:PREF_KEY];
    }
 }

Load:

NSDictionary* cookieDictionary = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] dictionaryForKey:PREF_KEY];
NSDictionary* cookieProperties = [cookieDictionary valueForKey:URL];
if (cookieProperties != nil) {
    NSHTTPCookie* cookie = [NSHTTPCookie cookieWithProperties:cookieProperties];
    NSArray* cookieArray = [NSArray arrayWithObject:cookie];
    [[NSHTTPCookieStorage sharedHTTPCookieStorage] setCookies:cookieArray forURL:[NSURL URLWithString:URL] mainDocumentURL:nil];
}