Let’s talk about cookies! No, not the kind you eat (although those are pretty delicious). We’re talking about HTTP Cookies small pieces of data that websites store on your computer so they can remember who you are and keep track of any preferences or settings you have selected. But sometimes these cookies can be a pain to deal with in code. That’s where Morsel comes in!
Morsel is a Python library that makes working with HTTP Cookies easy as pie (or maybe more like cake). With Morsel, you can easily read and write cookies without having to worry about all the messy details. Let’s take a look at how it works.
First, let’s say we have a file called “http.cookies.txt” on our computer that contains all of the cookies for a particular domain (in this case, Amazon). Here’s what that might look like:
# This script is used to read and write cookies from a file without worrying about the details.
# First, we need to import the necessary module for handling cookies.
import http.cookies
# Next, we define a function to read the cookies from the file.
def read_cookies(file_name):
# We open the file in read mode and store the contents in a variable.
with open(file_name, 'r') as f:
# We use the http.cookies module to parse the cookies from the file.
cookies = http.cookies.SimpleCookie(f.read())
# We return the cookies as a dictionary.
return cookies
# Now, we can call the function and pass in the file name.
cookies = read_cookies("http.cookies.txt")
# We can then access specific cookies by using their name as a key in the dictionary.
# For example, we can get the session-id cookie and print its value.
print(cookies['session-id'].value)
# We can also add new cookies to the file by using the set() method.
# Let's add a new cookie called "user-id" with a value of 12345.
cookies.set('user-id', '12345')
# Finally, we can write the updated cookies back to the file.
# We open the file in write mode and use the output() method to write the cookies in the correct format.
with open("http.cookies.txt", 'w') as f:
f.write(cookies.output())
# Now, the file will contain the updated cookies, including the new "user-id" cookie.
Each line in this file represents a cookie for Amazon you can see the name of the cookie (Amazon.com), as well as its value and other attributes like Path, Domain, Expires, Secure, and HttpOnly.
Now let’s say we want to read these cookies using Morsel. Here’s what that might look like:
# Import the Morsel class from the morsel module
from morsel import Morsel
# Import the os module for file operations
import os
# Set the name of the cookie file to be read
cookie_file = "http.cookies.txt"
# Check if the cookie file exists
if not os.path.exists(cookie_file):
# Print an error message if the file does not exist
print("Error: cookie file does not exist")
# Exit the script
exit()
# Create an empty list to store the Morsel objects
morsels = []
# Open the cookie file in read mode
with open(cookie_file, 'r') as f:
# Loop through each line in the file
for line in f:
# Create a new Morsel object
morsel = Morsel()
# Parse the line and store the data in the Morsel object
morsel.parse(line)
# Append the Morsel object to the list
morsels.append(morsel)
In this code snippet, we’re using the `Morsel` class from the `morsel` library to read each line of our cookie file and parse it into a Morsel object. We then append these objects to a list called `morsels`.
Now let’s say you want to write some new cookies to this same file using Morsel. Here’s what that might look like:
# Import the necessary library and modules
from morsel import Morsel # Import the Morsel class from the morsel library
import os # Import the os module for file operations
# Define the path to the cookie file
cookie_file = "http.cookies.txt"
# Check if the file exists
if not os.path.exists(cookie_file):
print("Error: cookie file does not exist")
exit()
# Create an empty list to store the Morsel objects
morsels = []
# Open the cookie file in append mode
with open(cookie_file, 'a') as f:
# Create a new Morsel object with the name and value of the cookie
morsel1 = Morsel('my-new-cookie', 'value1234567890')
# Set the attributes of the cookie using the set() method
morsel1.set('Path', '/') # Set the path of the cookie to '/'
morsel1.set('Domain', '.example.com') # Set the domain of the cookie to '.example.com'
morsel1.set('Expires', 'Thu, 01 Jan 2038 00:00:00 GMT') # Set the expiration date of the cookie
morsel1.set('Secure', True) # Set the cookie to be secure
morsel1.set('HttpOnly', True) # Set the cookie to be accessible only through HTTP
# Write the output of the Morsel object to the file
f.write(morsel1.output() + '\n')
# Add more cookies as needed...
In this code snippet, we’re creating a new Morsel object called `morsel1`, setting its attributes (name, value, Path, Domain, Expires, Secure, and HttpOnly), and then writing it to the cookie file using the `output()` method. We also add more cookies as needed…
And that’s pretty much all there is to it! With Morsel, you can easily read and write HTTP Cookies without having to deal with all of the messy details. It’s like a delicious slice of cake easy to digest and oh-so satisfying.