Cookie Class

The Cookie class lets you access cookies for your Salesforce site using Apex.

Namespace

System

Usage

Use the setCookies method of the PageReference Class to attach cookies to a page.

Cookie names and values set in Apex are URL encoded, that is, characters such as @ are replaced with a percent sign and their hexadecimal representation.
The setCookies method adds the prefix “apex__” to the cookie names.
Setting a cookie's value to null sends a cookie with an empty string value instead of setting an expired attribute.
After you create a cookie, the properties of the cookie can't be changed.
Be careful when storing sensitive information in cookies. Pages are cached regardless of a cookie value. If you use a cookie value to generate dynamic content, you should disable page caching. For more information, see Configure Site Caching in Salesforce Help.

Important

Consider the following limitations when using the Cookie class:

The Cookie class can only be accessed using Apex that is saved using the Salesforce API version 19 and above.
The maximum number of cookies that can be set per Salesforce Sites domain depends on your browser. Newer browsers have higher limits than older ones.
Cookies must be less than 4K, including name and attributes.
The maximum header size of a Visualforce page, including cookies, is 8,192 bytes.

For more information on sites, see “Salesforce Sites” in the Salesforce online help.

Example

The following example creates a class, CookieController, which is used with a Visualforce page (see markup below) to update a counter each time a user displays a page. The number of times a user goes to the page is stored in a cookie.

1// A Visualforce controller class that creates a cookie
2// used to keep track of how often a user displays a page
3public class CookieController {
4
5    public CookieController() {
6        Cookie counter = ApexPages.currentPage().getCookies().get('counter');
7    
8        // If this is the first time the user is accessing the page, 
9        // create a new cookie with name 'counter', an initial value of '1', 
10        // path 'null', maxAge '-1', and isSecure 'true'. 
11        if (counter == null) {
12            counter = new Cookie('counter','1',null,-1,true);
13        } else {
14        // If this isn't the first time the user is accessing the page
15        // create a new cookie, incrementing the value of the original count by 1
16            Integer count = Integer.valueOf(counter.getValue());
17            counter = new Cookie('counter', String.valueOf(count+1),null,-1,true);
18        }
19    
20        // Set the new cookie for the page
21        ApexPages.currentPage().setCookies(new Cookie[]{counter});
22    }
23
24    // This method is used by the Visualforce action {!count} to display the current 
25    // value of the number of times a user had displayed a page. 
26    // This value is stored in the cookie.
27    public String getCount() {
28        Cookie counter = ApexPages.currentPage().getCookies().get('counter');
29        if(counter == null) {
30            return '0';
31        }
32        return counter.getValue();
33    }
34}

1// Test class for the Visualforce controller
2@isTest
3private class CookieControllerTest {
4  // Test method for verifying the positive test case
5  static testMethod void testCounter() {
6    //first page view
7    CookieController controller = new CookieController();
8    System.assert(controller.getCount() == '1');
9
10    //second page view       
11    controller = new CookieController();
12    System.assert(controller.getCount() == '2');
13  }
14}

The following is the Visualforce page that uses the CookieController Apex controller above. The action {!count} calls the getCount method in the controller above.

1<apex:page controller="CookieController">
2You have seen this page {!count} times
3</apex:page>

Visualforce Developer Guide

Cookie Class

Namespace

Usage

Example