Question

I trying to remove a cookie in a servlet with this code

Cookie minIdCookie = null;

for (Cookie c : req.getCookies()) {
    if (c.getName().equals("iPlanetDirectoryPro")) {
        minIdCookie = c;
        break;
    }
}

if (minIdCookie != null) {
    minIdCookie.setMaxAge(0);
    minIdCookie.setValue("");
    minIdCookie.setPath("/");
    res.addCookie(minIdCookie);
}

res.flushBuffer();

But this gives no effect and no change in the cookie properties.

I’ve also tried adding a cookie in this servlet and this works fine.

Why is it that I can not change the properties of an existing cookie.

Answer 1

The problem was that the cookie I wanted to remove had a path that was “/admin” and my logout servlet had the path “/admin/logoutServlet”. When I get the cookie from the request the path is set to null. So when I add the cookie the path is set to “/admin/” as my servletIf I created a cookie with the path “/admin/” the servlet was able to remove it.

I solved the problem by explisitly setting the path of the cookie before adding it to the response.

minIdCookie.setMaxAge(0);
minIdCookie.setPath("/");
res.addCookie(minIdCookie);

But I don’t understand why the path is null.