Loss of '+' characters when fetching cookie using perl's CGI::Cookie->fetch

Question

Cookie has value:

V7S9qwSUTlYYX0gTVO5edmBVyPZkNyMecr6LuABwN3KSgwTyasj1+0pGiN2OJ6s4Jja9ma+BJ0GCCiCFUc8k/uNk/4hIwsZv0KyHVVjOHFHtOq+PHMFaBKg5wRfXReI3LDmiDnIM6h0Z9hrEO5wYha/RadNqIqfJzUTOQl7q33RqQGcx/aLoiizm3tHs05InbAkUqwusJ1E4HFVLFqyvhEunFWrRO1Y/TfrZR7GvCzNiVYGO6O6E1yhup7CAaM6Lc22TjxNfKp1jGJy4NMQUvbMqCOlWZ75sFA4H3jeuNg0RcIC2zCT7l1JU8ZECGPDqf75FoL4qi+9rO0mgdEGgZL3cFk3dSyIApxXYeAR7RlKGsB0vqd4zxdSjTz5LRWK++SPyVNBsKMcVFfHDv7tv4PAUhK4sDT7bfBow9lIwV1f8slchXEcCgLNI2TYZsr/j/GoqnSb9mxp7VGmL7Z4s7cqWdpNsXEpQ3dMM7k4n1lVKOk2qCrzBrqvJRE7mNeaAz6RVjQuroOj0tJOhLUsZeukVbCxORY6k01fNgwPc1v7xGh7y0x6906WOHlcgti4+ofaSxG4AxwWeaf55loL6vN5d5/UEICGlRuxEjpM8X5og2RYhxr/qQWGVBbiZFBkDDd7esG3rXML63cRJ011Du03UzoS2DxKhFeDmrJM7QinuDEAr0UF1p90kj6hN+PqYqfsRONFXjUS8BqjAMJVEoVnnX5uiAAu1MCZc/xDNDzhu10eiib4Tr+7y6yePw7TQm+bunMMFqYVSMMCIapiAsCS70B96UPSgRQHRbzNzeee9ulDvdtXFxdswf89Bi6LwMaPNdcVdq/Cd5KMziRzwqsCli8jkFF7qATgo5E9wU9OueGPlXCnJzdUBu2BG1JaJEZcsDdfczD3vfrVZXy/xQ66OMbwWUn/R02mr3LTiGU5T6pbcsTNbTQyWwc9gNZsjshqBNh5oJ9ScMBI947Gkatf3fkhlH1NJpXX0GNPQ6OqSg+RALq7EEqBRmy4pszu/9BDmmKck6luJzihaAfeFyZC/SwlcUbg/epGmOSAlJRRUBckj1ufuBFMKKd6hkn1qaZUX1fPrCfNVJ7pzVT66tRurqF4HvX8JIKiC/BTPN5ZAw5fkIUJKn+H7x5o1XG9WMFO/AQ/lUVstaB8/hjY+JC6bZapKwsNj

In perl using:

%cookies = CGI::Cookie->fetch;
$ticket = $cookies{$ticketKey}->value;
print STDERR $ticket;

I get:

V7S9qwSUTlYYX0gTVO5edmBVyPZkNyMecr6LuABwN3KSgwTyasj1 0pGiN2OJ6s4Jja9ma BJ0GCCiCFUc8k/uNk/4hIwsZv0KyHVVjOHFHtOq PHMFaBKg5wRfXReI3LDmiDnIM6h0Z9hrEO5wYha/RadNqIqfJzUTOQl7q33RqQGcx/aLoiizm3tHs05InbAkUqwusJ1E4HFVLFqyvhEunFWrRO1Y/TfrZR7GvCzNiVYGO6O6E1yhup7CAaM6Lc22TjxNfKp1jGJy4NMQUvbMqCOlWZ75sFA4H3jeuNg0RcIC2zCT7l1JU8ZECGPDqf75FoL4qi 9rO0mgdEGgZL3cFk3dSyIApxXYeAR7RlKGsB0vqd4zxdSjTz5LRWK  SPyVNBsKMcVFfHDv7tv4PAUhK4sDT7bfBow9lIwV1f8slchXEcCgLNI2TYZsr/j/GoqnSb9mxp7VGmL7Z4s7cqWdpNsXEpQ3dMM7k4n1lVKOk2qCrzBrqvJRE7mNeaAz6RVjQuroOj0tJOhLUsZeukVbCxORY6k01fNgwPc1v7xGh7y0x6906WOHlcgti4 ofaSxG4AxwWeaf55loL6vN5d5/UEICGlRuxEjpM8X5og2RYhxr/qQWGVBbiZFBkDDd7esG3rXML63cRJ011Du03UzoS2DxKhFeDmrJM7QinuDEAr0UF1p90kj6hN PqYqfsRONFXjUS8BqjAMJVEoVnnX5uiAAu1MCZc/xDNDzhu10eiib4Tr 7y6yePw7TQm bunMMFqYVSMMCIapiAsCS70B96UPSgRQHRbzNzeee9ulDvdtXFxdswf89Bi6LwMaPNdcVdq/Cd5KMziRzwqsCli8jkFF7qATgo5E9wU9OueGPlXCnJzdUBu2BG1JaJEZcsDdfczD3vfrVZXy/xQ66OMbwWUn/R02mr3LTiGU5T6pbcsTNbTQyWwc9gNZsjshqBNh5oJ9ScMBI947Gkatf3fkhlH1NJpXX0GNPQ6OqSg RALq7EEqBRmy4pszu/9BDmmKck6luJzihaAfeFyZC/SwlcUbg/epGmOSAlJRRUBckj1ufuBFMKKd6hkn1qaZUX1fPrCfNVJ7pzVT66tRurqF4HvX8JIKiC/BTPN5ZAw5fkIUJKn H7x5o1XG9WMFO/AQ/lUVstaB8/hjY JC6bZapKwsNj

Notice the loss of the + characters? What could be causing this? We are using perl v5.8.5 with Apache/2.0.52

Answer 1

Cookie values are url escaped, which means that spaces are replaced with the + character and other punctuation marks are replaced with %xx codes. The CGI::Cookie::fetch method decodes the value, and the spaces in your cookie value are restored.

You can use the raw_fetch method if you don't want the cookie values to be decoded.

Answer 2

TRY Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_COOKIE"] value in your code, which gives RAW cookie (without removing + or = characters in the cookie data)