InternetGetCookieA function (wininet.h)

Retrieves the cookie for the specified URL.

Syntax

BOOL InternetGetCookieA(
  [in]      LPCSTR  lpszUrl,
  [in]      LPCSTR  lpszCookieName,
  [out]     LPSTR   lpszCookieData,
  [in, out] LPDWORD lpdwSize
);

Parameters

[in] lpszUrl

A pointer to a null-terminated string that specifies the URL for which cookies are to be retrieved.

[in] lpszCookieName

Not implemented.

[out] lpszCookieData

A pointer to a buffer that receives the cookie data. This parameter can be NULL.

[in, out] lpdwSize

A pointer to a variable that specifies the size of the lpszCookieData parameter buffer, in TCHARs. If the function succeeds, the buffer receives the amount of data copied to the lpszCookieData buffer. If lpszCookieData is NULL, this parameter receives a value that specifies the size of the buffer necessary to copy all the cookie data, expressed as a byte count.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the function returns TRUE.

If the function fails, it returns FALSE. To get extended error data, call GetLastError.

The following error values apply to InternetGetCookie.

Return code Description
ERROR_NO_MORE_ITEMS
There is no cookie for the specified URL and all its parents.
ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER
The value passed in lpdwSize is insufficient to copy all the cookie data. The value returned in lpdwSize is the size of the buffer necessary to get all the data.
ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER
One or more of the parameters is invalid.

The lpszUrl parameter is NULL.

Remarks

InternetGetCookie does not require a call to InternetOpen. InternetGetCookie checks in the windows\cookies directory for persistent cookies that have an expiration date set sometime in the future. InternetGetCookie also searches memory for any session cookies, that is, cookies that do not have an expiration date that were created in the same process by InternetSetCookie, because these cookies are not written to any files. Rules for creating cookie files are internal to the system and can change in the future.

As noted in HTTP Cookies, InternetGetCookie does not return cookies that the server marked as non-scriptable with the "HttpOnly" attribute in the Set-Cookie header.

Like all other aspects of the WinINet API, this function cannot be safely called from within DllMain or the constructors and destructors of global objects.

Note  WinINet does not support server implementations. In addition, it should not be used from a service. For server implementations or services use Microsoft Windows HTTP Services (WinHTTP).
 

Note

The wininet.h header defines InternetGetCookie as an alias which automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Minimum supported client Windows 2000 Professional [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Target Platform Windows
Header wininet.h
Library Wininet.lib
DLL Wininet.dll

See also

HTTP Cookies

InternetGetCookieEx

InternetSetCookie

InternetSetCookieEx

Managing Cookies

WinINet Functions