What Is a Cookie?

This section describes what is a cookie - a small amount of information sent by a Web server to a Web browser, saved by the browser, and sent back to the server later.

What Is a Cookie? Cookie is a small amount of information sent by a Web server to a Web browser, saved by the browser, and sent back to the server later. Cookies are transmitted inside the HTTP header.

Cookies move from server to browser, and back to server as follows:

Web         Web         Local       Web           Web
Server      Browser     System      Browser       Server

Send        Receive     Save        Send back     Receive
cookies --> cookies --> cookies --> cookies   --> cookies

As you can see from the diagram, cookies are actually saved to the hard disk of Web browser user's machines. Many users are concerned about this. But I think it is pretty safe to allow your browser to save cookies.

If you are really concerned, you can change your browser's settings to reject cookies. But this may cause many Web based applications fail to run on your browser.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 ASP (Active Server Pages) Introduction

 IIS (Internet Information Services) 5.0

 MS Script Debugger

 VBScript Language

 ASP Built-in Run-time Objects

 ASP Session

Creating and Managing Cookies

What Is a Cookie?

 Sending and Receiving Cookies

 Cookie Properties and Itemized Values

 Cookie Test Program Result

 Special Cookies

 Managing Sessions with and without Cookies

 scrrun.dll - Scripting Runtime DLL

 Managing Response Header Lines

 Calculation Speed and Response Time

 ADO (ActiveX Data Object) DLL

 Working with MS Access Database

 Guest Book Application Example

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB