PHP CURL With Cookies (Simple Examples)

Welcome to a tutorial on how to do PHP CURL calls with cookies. Need to do a server-to-server call that involves cookies? Well yes, CURL is fully capable of handling that with a few small tweaks.

That covers the basics, but read on for more examples!

 

 

TLDR – QUICK SLIDES

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

1) SET & GET COOKIE

1A) LOCAL SERVER CURL CALL

<?php
// (A) INIT CURL
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://localhost/x-dummy.php");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);

// (B) SET COOKIE FILE
// CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE - SEND THIS COOKIE FILE TO THE REMOTE SERVER.
// CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR - SAVE COOKIE INTO THIS FILE AFTER CURL CLOSE.
$cookie = __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "cookie.txt"; // NOTE: ABSOLUTE PATH
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $cookie);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $cookie);

// (C) CURL FETCH
$result = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_errno($ch)) { echo curl_error($ch); }
else {
  echo $result."\r\n\r\n";
  $clist = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_COOKIELIST);
  echo "LOCAL SERVER RECEIVED COOKIE - ";
  print_r($clist);
}
curl_close($ch);

This is just a “slightly improved” version of the introduction snippet to output the exchange results between the local and remote servers.

 

 

1B) DUMMY REMOTE SERVER

<?php
// (A) OUTPUT COOKIE ON REMOTE SERVER
echo "REMOTE SERVER COOKIE - ";
print_r($_COOKIE);
 
// (B) SEND HEADER - UPDATE "TEST" COOKIE TIMESTAMP
setcookie("Test", date("Y-m-d H:i:s"));

On the dummy remote server – We simply output the received cookie and send a header to set the Test cookie to the current timestamp.

 

1C) WHAT WILL HAPPEN

• On the first run –
  • The remote server will not show any cookie values since it is a new connection.
  • The remote server then responds with a set-cookie Test = NOW back to the local server.
  • The local server saves Test = NOW to the cookie.txt file.
• On subsequent runs –
  • The local server reads cookie.txt and sends it to the remote server.
  • The remote server now displays the timestamp of the previous visit.
  • Then sends set-cookie Test = NOW back to the local server.
  • The local server updates Test = NOW in the cookie.txt file.

 

 

2) MANUALLY SETTING COOKIES

<?php
// (A) INIT CURL - SET URL + RETURN RESULTS & HEADER
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://localhost/x-dummy.php");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);

// (B) SET COOKIE FILE
$cookie = __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "cookie.txt"; // NOTE: ABSOLUTE PATH
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $cookie);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $cookie);
// CURLOPT_COOKIE - MANUALLY SET COOKIE
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, "keyA=valueA; keyB=valueB");

// (C) CURL FETCH
$result = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_errno($ch)) { echo curl_error($ch); }
else {
  echo $result."\r\n\r\n";

  // NOTE: LOCAL COOKIE WILL ONLY SET "TEST" 
  // SINCE REMOTE SERVER ONLY SPECIFY "SET-COOKIE: TEST=TIMESTAMP"
  $clist = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_COOKIELIST);
  echo "LOCAL SERVER COOKIE - ";
  print_r($clist);
}
curl_close($ch);

This is the same example as above, but with another line of curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE) to append more data. Following up with the above:

• The local server will read from cookie.txt, append keyA=valueA; keyB=valueB, and send these to the remote server.
• The remote server will now show the cookie values of Test, keyA, keyB.
• Take note of the response part – The remote server only states set-cookie Test = NOW. So the local server will only update Test in cookie.txt; keyA keyB will not be saved.

 

 

3) FLUSHING & CLEARING COOKIES

// (C) FORCE NEW SESSION
// CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION - FORCE NEW COOKIE SESSION, IGNORE LAST
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION, true);
 
// CURLOPT_COOKIELIST
// "ALL" ERASES ALL COOKIES IN MEMORY. 
// "SESS" ERASES ALL SESSION COOKIES HELD IN MEMORY.
// "FLUSH" WRITES COOKIES TO CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR. 
// "RELOAD" RELOAD COOKIES FROM CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIELIST, "ALL");

Lastly, just a quick mention – If you need to clear or empty the cookies, use the CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION or CURLOPT_COOKIELIST options to do it.

 

 

 

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EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Click here for the source code on GitHub gist, just click on “download zip” or do a git clone. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

• CURL – PHP
• CURL Options – PHP
• Cookie – PHP

 

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