Netscape once created a file format for storing cookies on disk so that they would survive browser restarts. curl adopted that file format to allow sharing the cookies with browsers, only to soon watch the browsers move away from that format. Modern browsers no longer use it, while curl still does.
The Netscape cookie file format stores one cookie per physical line in the file with a bunch of associated meta data, each field separated with TAB. That file is called the cookiejar in curl terminology.
When libcurl saves a cookiejar, it creates a file header of its own in which there is a URL mention that links to the web version of this document.
The cookie file format is text based and stores one cookie per line. Lines
that start with # are treated as comments.
Each line that specifies a single cookie consists of seven text fields separated with TAB characters (ASCII octet 9). A valid line must end with a newline character.
Field number, what type and example data and the meaning of it:
- string
example.com- the domain name - boolean
FALSE- include subdomains - string
/foobar/- path - boolean
TRUE- send/receive over HTTPS only - number
1462299217- expires at - seconds since Jan 1st 1970, or 0 - string
person- name of the cookie - string
daniel- value of the cookie