Question

I have a simple Sinatra app that I am playing with, and for some reason the cookies don’t seem to work for certain routes, which I find quite bizarre.

require "sinatra"

set(:authenticate) do |*vars|
    condition do
        unless request.cookies.has_key?("TestCookie")
            redirect to("/login"), 303 
        end
    end
end

get "/login" do
    return "No valid cookie"
end

get "/secret", :authenticate => [:auth_cookie] do
    cookie = request.cookies["TestCookie"]
    return "Secrets ahoy - #{cookie}"
end

get '/cookie/set' do
    response.set_cookie("TestCookie", {
        :expires => Time.now + 2400,
        :value => "TestValue"
    })
    return "Cookie is set"
end

get '/cookie/get' do
    cookie = request.cookies["TestCookie"]
    return "Cookie with value #{cookie}"
end

If I go to cookies/set it correctly sets the cookie (can see it in firecookie), then if I go to cookies/get I get the correct cookie output. However if I go to /secret it always redirects to the /login. As I am still fairly new to Ruby syntax I thought it may be a problem with my condition within the authenticate extension, so I have tried removing that and just spitting out the cookie like the other one does. However still nothing, so I am at a loss as to why the cookie is there, I can see it in the browser… and /cookies/get works, but /secret doesn’t…

Am I missing something here?

Answer 1

The problem is that the cookie is set with path /cookie. When you set a cookie your can specify a path, which is effectively a sub-part of the Website that you want the cookie to apply to. I guess Sinatra/Rack use the path of the current request by default which in /cookie/set would be /cookie.

You can make it work the way you expect by explicitly specifying the path:

  response.set_cookie("TestCookie", {
    :expires => Time.now + 2400,
    :value => "TestValue",
    :path => '/'
  })

Or you could set the cookie at a route called say /cookie-set rather than /cookie/set