NSHTTPCookieStorage and Cookie Expiration Date

Question

In our iPhone app we use two cookies during server communication. One is a short session cookie (JSESSION), and the other is a long session cookie (REMEMBER ME). If an answer comes from the server, it sends a short session cookie, which I can find in the NSHTTPCookieStorage.

My question is how this storage handles the cookie's expiration date? So if the cookie expires, does it delete that cookie automatically, and if I try to get this cookie by its name from the storage after expiration, do I get anything? Or do I have to check the expiration manually?

Answer 1

My question is how this storage handles the cookie's expiration date?

NSHTTPCookieStorage stores the NSHTTPCookie objects that has expiration date as one of its property.

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSHTTPCookie_Class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/occ/cl/NSHTTPCookie

So if the cookie expires, does it delete that cookie automatically, and if I try to get this cookie by it's name from the storage after expiration, do I get anything? Or do I have to check the expiration manually?

You should check manually for expiration and delete the cookie yourself

As it is referred in http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSHTTPCookie_Class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/occ/cl/NSHTTPCookie

The receiver’s expiration date, or nil if there is no specific expiration date such as in the case of “session-only” cookies. The expiration date is the date when the cookie should be deleted.

Answer 2

To be more practical...

+(BOOL) isCookieExpired{

    BOOL status = YES;

    NSArray *oldCookies = [[ NSHTTPCookieStorage sharedHTTPCookieStorage ]
                           cookiesForURL: [NSURL URLWithString:kBASEURL]];
    NSHTTPCookie *cookie = [oldCookies lastObject];
    if (cookie) {
        NSDate *expiresDate =    [cookie expiresDate];
        NSDate *currentDate = [NSDate date];
        NSComparisonResult result = [currentDate compare:expiresDate];

        if(result==NSOrderedAscending){
            status = NO;
            NSLog(@"expiresDate is in the future");
        }
        else if(result==NSOrderedDescending){
            NSLog(@"expiresDate is in the past");
        }
        else{
            status = NO;
            NSLog(@"Both dates are the same");
        }
    }

    return status;
}