Roku Developer Program

[tifroz]

I can't seem to be able to get cookies working on an roVideoPlayer object (implements ifHttpAgent). I have mocked up some really simple code to try to narrow it down, but even my stripped down code doesn't work as expected. Does anyone have a working example of AddCookie(), or some pointers to share?


Here's what I have tried:

player = CreateObject("roVideoPlayer")
expires = CreateObject("roDateTime")
expires.FromSeconds( expires.asSeconds() + 3600 )

' Using an empty string domain (If domain is an empty string, all domains are matched)
player.AddCookies([{version:1, name:"thecookie", value:"the value", domain: "", path:"/", expires: expires}])

 ' This should print an roArray containing one roAssociativeArray element - instead it prints an empty roArray
Print "player.getCookies(): " player.getCookies(".google.com", "/")

[belltown]

Make sure you call player.EnableCookies() first.

Also, AddCookies() has a Boolean return code. It returns False if the call fails, e.g. because you haven't called EnableCookies().

[tifroz]

Thanks - I tried again after inserting player.EnableCookies() before adding cookies ... it did affect the boolean value returned by AddCookie() (true if cookies are enabled, false otherwise), but GetCookies() is still returning empty.

I don't think the behavior is caused by a flawed call to GetCookies(): I tested the same logic against a server while monitoring http traffic and the cookie header isn't showing there either

[belltown]

Do this return anything: player.getCookies("", "/")

I was also wondering whether you had the domain correct ".google.com" perhaps should be "google.com"

[Veeta]

Here's my general flow for adding previously stored cookies to a new roUrlTransfer object:

' Getting some useful cookies
Function login(hostname As String)
   http = CreateObject("roUrlTransfer")
   http.SetUrl("http://" + hostname + "/...")
   http.EnableCookies()
   http.AsyncPostFromString(...)
   '... wait for response
   http.GetCookies(hostname, "/")
End Function

' Using those cookies later
Function usecookies(hostname As String)
   http = CreateObject("roUrlTransfer")
   http.SetUrl("http://" + hostname + "/...")
   http.EnableCookies()
   http.AddCookies(cookies)
   http.AsyncGetToString()
   ...
End Function

This works for me after a little trial and error. I believe the key is to make sure the hostname lines up everywhere. If you are setting a cookie for an empty domain, it may ignore it or at least not return it when you ask for cookies from a different domain. Cookie domain matching is a security-sensitive subject. Another hint is that we know it's libcurl under the covers. Looking at curl's documentation on cookie management might give more insight.

[tifroz]

OK thanks for all the help. I got it to work with 2 changes overall
• EnableCookie() doc says "Causes any Set-Cookie headers returned from the request to be interpreted and the resulting cookies to be added to the cookie cache" - but it turns out to be necessary also when adding cookies manually via AddCookie()
• Empty domain names make sense for GetCookies(), but don't make sense for AddCookies()

Here is a working version of the code

        expires = CreateObject("roDateTime")
        expires.FromSeconds( expires.asSeconds() + 3600 )
        cookie = {version:1, name:"thecookies", value:"thevalue", domain: domain, path:path, expires: expires}

        player = CreateObject("roVideoPlayer")
        player.EnableCookies()
        player.AddCookies([cookie])
        player = http.GetCookies("", "/")
        if cookies.count() = 1
            Print "YEP"
        else
            Print "NOPE"
        end if