ASP.NET Client Side State Management - Cookies
ASP.NET Client Side State Management - Cookies
In this post I'm going to explain what are cookies and how to use
them as a part of the ASP.NET client side state management.
You can read my previous posts in the state management subject in
the following links:
What are Cookies?
A cookie is a piece of data that is saved in the client web browser.
The cookie is saved either in the memory of the web browser or as a
text file in the file system of the client.
Cookies are used to identify a user, to store state information, preferences
of the user and etc. The ASP.NET use the cookies mechanism to track users
session.
How Does Cookies Mechanism Work?
The mechanism of cookies is simple. When a client request a web page
from a server the first request isn't containing a cookie. The server identify that
the client has no cookie and generate one. Then the server sends the cookie to
the client and from now on the client will send the cookie in every request and the
server will send the cookie in every response.
Cookies Limitations
- Most browsers support cookies of up to 4096 bytes. This limitation makes the
cookies a way to store only small amount of data.
- Browsers have a limit on the amount of cookies a web site can save in the client.
Most browsers allow only 20 cookies per site.
- The user can set the browser to disable cookies and therefore you can't
trust cookies and you always have to check if the browser enables cookies.
A rule of thumb - do not use cookies for critical information.
How To Use Cookies?
Cookies are sent in the HTTP header of the response. To create a
cookie
you need to use the
Response.Cookies property. To read a
cookie value
from the client use the
Request.Cookies property.
The following example
shows how to read a
cookie named "
cookie" and how to write the
cookie:
// it can be different from null only is
// a request was made before
if (Request.Cookies["cookie"] != null)
{
// get the cookie
HttpCookie cookie = Request.Cookies["cookie"];
// get the cookie value
string value = Server.HtmlEncode(cookie.Value);
}
// write the cookie to the response
Response.Cookies["cookie"].Value = "value";
In the
HttpCookie class there is a Expires property. If you don't use it
(like in the example) the
cookie is saved in memory and discarded if the
user closes the browser. If you use the property you must define the amount
of time the
cookie is saved. In order to delete a saved
cookie you need to
use the Expires property and pass a past expiration date. There is no way
to delete a
cookie otherwise.
In the previous example the
cookie saves a single value.
The
cookie can save multiple values like I show in the next example.
Response.Cookies["cookie"]["key1"].Value = "value1";
Response.Cookies["cookie"]["key2"].Value = "value2";
Response.Cookies["cookie"]["key3"].Value = "value3";
Determine If a Browser Accepts Cookies
The clients can disable cookies.
One way to check if cookies are disabled is to write a cookie to the
Response and in the next Request to check if the cookie exists.
If the cookie doesn't exists you need to assume that cookies are disabled.
Summary
To sum up the post, I explained what are cookies and how you can use
them to save state. The cookies technique is one of the backbones of the
ASP.NET session state which will be covered in a later post.
The last client side state management technique - the control state - will be
explained in the next post of this series.