Cookies
Your application can store small amounts of data on the client - called cookies - that will be persisted across requests and even sessions. Rails provides easy access to cookies via the `cookies` method, which - much like the `session` - works like a hash:
class CommentsController < ApplicationController
def new
#Auto-fill the commenter's name if it has been stored in a cookie
@comment = Comment.new(:name => cookies[:commenter_name])
end
def create
@comment = Comment.new(params[:comment])
if @comment.save
flash[:notice] = "Thanks for your comment!"
if params[:remember_name]
# Remember the commenter's name
cookies[:commenter_name] = @comment.name
else
# Don't remember, and delete the name if it has been remembered before
cookies.delete(:commenter_name)
end
redirect_to @comment.article
else
render :action => "new"
end
end
end
Note that while for session values, you set the key to `nil`, to delete a cookie value, you use `cookies.delete(:key)`.
Articles in this guide
- Introduction
- What does a controller do?
- Parameters
- Sessions
- Cookies (This article)
- Filters
- Verification
- The request and response objects
- HTTP Basic Authentication
- Streaming and file downloads
- Parameter filtering
- Rescue
Thanks to the Ruby on Rails documentation team
This guide was written by Tore Darrell as part of the Ruby on Rails Documentation Project and is provided freely under a Creative Commons licence
