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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-18T10:03:29+00:00

Say for example I had an application sending the following HTTP headers to set

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Say for example I had an application sending the following HTTP headers to set to cookie named “a”:

Set-Cookie: a=1;Path=/;Version=1
Set-Cookie: a=2;Path=/example;Version=1

If I access /example on the server both paths are valid, so I have two cookies named “a”! Since the browser doesn’t send any path information, the two cookies cannot be distinguished. 

Cookie: a=2; a=1

How should this case be handled? Pick the first one? Create a list with all cookie values? Or should such a case be considered as a developer’s mistake?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    From this article on SitePoint:

    If multiple cookies of the same name match a given request URI, one is chosen by the browser.

    The more specific the path, the higher the precedence. However precedence based on other attributes, including the domain, is unspecified, and may vary between browsers. This means that if you have set cookies of the same name against “.example.org” and “www.example.org”, you can’t be sure which one will be sent back.

    Edit: this information from 2010 appears to be outdated, it seems browsers can now send multiple cookies in return, see answer by @Nate below for details

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