Get and Set a Single Cookie with Node.js HTTP Server

There is no quick function access to getting/setting cookies, so I came up with the following hack:

var http = require('http');

function parseCookies (request) {
    var list = {},
        rc = request.headers.cookie;

    rc && rc.split(';').forEach(function( cookie ) {
        var parts = cookie.split('=');
        list[parts.shift().trim()] = decodeURI(parts.join('='));
    });

    return list;
}


http.createServer(function (request, response) {

  // To Read a Cookie
  var cookies = parseCookies(request);

  // To Write a Cookie
  response.writeHead(200, {
    'Set-Cookie': 'mycookie=test',
    'Content-Type': 'text/plain'
  });
  response.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(8124);

console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8124/');

This will store all cookies into the cookies object, and you need to set cookies when you write the head.

If you're using the express library, as many node.js developers do, there is an easier way. Check the Express.js documentation page for more information.

The parsing example above works but express gives you a nice function to take care of that:

app.use(express.cookieParser());

To set a cookie:

res.cookie('cookiename', 'cookievalue', { maxAge: 900000, httpOnly: true });

To clear the cookie:

res.clearCookie('cookiename');

RevNoah had the best answer with the suggestion of using Express's cookie parser. But, that answer is now 3 years old and is out of date.

Using Express, you can read a cookie as follows

var express = require('express');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var app = express();
app.use(cookieParser());
app.get('/myapi', function(req, resp) {
   console.log(req.cookies['Your-Cookie-Name-Here']);
})

And update your package.json with the following, substituting the appropriate relatively latest versions.

"dependencies": {
    "express": "4.12.3",
    "cookie-parser": "1.4.0"
  },

More operations like setting and parsing cookies are described here and here