1 Short: b 2 Long: cookie 3 Arg: <data|filename> 4 Protocols: HTTP 5 Help: Send cookies from string/file 6 --- 7 Pass the data to the HTTP server in the Cookie header. It is supposedly 8 the data previously received from the server in a "Set-Cookie:" line. The 9 data should be in the format "NAME1=VALUE1; NAME2=VALUE2". 10 11 If no '=' symbol is used in the argument, it is instead treated as a filename 12 to read previously stored cookie from. This option also activates the cookie 13 engine which will make curl record incoming cookies, which may be handy if 14 you're using this in combination with the --location option or do multiple URL 15 transfers on the same invoke. If the file name is exactly a minus ("-"), curl 16 will instead the contents from stdin. 17 18 The file format of the file to read cookies from should be plain HTTP headers 19 (Set-Cookie style) or the Netscape/Mozilla cookie file format. 20 21 The file specified with --cookie is only used as input. No cookies will be 22 written to the file. To store cookies, use the --cookie-jar option. 23 24 Exercise caution if you are using this option and multiple transfers may 25 occur. If you use the NAME1=VALUE1; format, or in a file use the Set-Cookie 26 format and don't specify a domain, then the cookie is sent for any domain 27 (even after redirects are followed) and cannot be modified by a server-set 28 cookie. If the cookie engine is enabled and a server sets a cookie of the same 29 name then both will be sent on a future transfer to that server, likely not 30 what you intended. To address these issues set a domain in Set-Cookie (doing 31 that will include sub domains) or use the Netscape format. 32 33 If this option is used several times, the last one will be used. 34 35 Users very often want to both read cookies from a file and write updated 36 cookies back to a file, so using both --cookie and --cookie-jar in the same 37 command line is common. 38