Re: Further questions about cookies

[Gordon McComb <gmccomb@ix.netcom.com>]

I have never considered JavaScript owning a virtual machine, in the way Java
does, so I'm not sure what you mean by this.  The cookies limitation is
self-imposed, to keep the cookies file a reasonable size (it's usually
cookies.txt, placed in the parent nav directory).  Cookies are inherently
tied to the document, so each document has a different cookie (but same
cookie file). The same cookies file is used by any Netscape site that
implements them, in addition to JavaScript.

Now, NS's documentation is pretty lousy for all of this.  One of the
questions I have is does the limitation apply to a "temporary" cookie --
that is, one that lasts just the current session?  These don't appear to get
written to the cookies.txt file.  These are use most often in JavaScript,
and I can easily see that with the proliferation of JavaScript that it will
be easy to exceed the 300/4K limit.

Bill Dortch, the fellow who worked up the cookies functions at the hIdaho
site, is about the most knowledgable when it comes to cookies and
JavaScript.  I don't know if he cruises this list, though.  You might try
sending him some mail at bdortch@hidaho.com, to see if he knows of any
additional documentation.

-- Gordon
http://gmccomb.com/javascript/

At 09:57 AM 3/19/96 +0000, you wrote:
>
>One further question on the subject of cookies.  Is the
>cookie associated with the document which currently has the
>focus, or is the cookie associated with the Javascript
>virtual machine.
>
>I ask this question because the Netscape documentation it
>open to interpertation.  First the cookie is 
>
>document.cookie
>
>but the documentation goes on to say that servers should
>only expect the client to store 300 cookies and a max of
>4k of data.
>
>Tests I have done in regards to this seem to indicate that
>although all the other document.xxx items are unique to each
>individual document, the cookie is generic to the Javascript
>virtual machine.
>
>Better and wiser heads, please correct this as required.
>Anyone with good additional documentation of cookies could
>rack up some serious brownie points with me by posting a
>URL of where to go.  
>http://www.hidaho.com/cookies/cookie.txt
>has some very useful cookie functions.
>
-- Gordon
http://gmccomb.com/javascript/


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