NAME

       CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE - file name to read cookies from

SYNOPSIS

       #include <curl/curl.h>

       CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, char *filename);

DESCRIPTION

       Pass  a pointer to a null-terminated string as parameter. It should point to the file name
       of your file holding cookie data to read. The  cookie  data  can  be  in  either  the  old
       Netscape  /  Mozilla  cookie  data  format or just regular HTTP headers (Set-Cookie style)
       dumped to a file.

       It also enables the cookie engine, making libcurl parse and  send  cookies  on  subsequent
       requests with this handle.

       By  passing  the  empty  string  ("") to this option, you enable the cookie engine without
       reading any initial cookies. If you tell libcurl the file name is "-" (just a single minus
       sign), libcurl instead reads from stdin.

       This   option   only   reads   cookies.  To  make  libcurl  write  cookies  to  file,  see
       CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR(3).

       If you read cookies from a plain HTTP headers file and it does not specify a domain in the
       Set-Cookie  line,  then  the  cookie  is not sent since the cookie domain cannot match the
       target URL's. To address this, set a  domain  in  Set-Cookie  line  (doing  that  includes
       subdomains) or preferably: use the Netscape format.

       If you use this option multiple times, you add more files to read cookies from.

       The application does not have to keep the string around after setting this option.

       Setting  this  option  to  NULL  (since  7.77.0) explicitly disables the cookie engine and
       clears the list of files to read cookies from.

SECURITY

       This document previously mentioned how specifying a non-existing file can also enable  the
       cookie  engine. While true, we strongly advise against using that method as it is too hard
       to be sure that files that stay that way in the long run.

DEFAULT

       NULL

PROTOCOLS

       HTTP

EXAMPLE

       int main(void)
       {
         CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
         if(curl) {
           CURLcode res;
           curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com/foo.bin");

           /* get cookies from an existing file */
           curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "/tmp/cookies.txt");

           res = curl_easy_perform(curl);

           curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
         }
       }

Cookie file format

       The cookie file format and general cookie concepts in  curl  are  described  online  here:
       https://curl.se/docs/http-cookies.html

AVAILABILITY

       As long as HTTP is supported

RETURN VALUE

       Returns CURLE_OK if HTTP is supported, and CURLE_UNKNOWN_OPTION if not.

SEE ALSO

       CURLOPT_COOKIE(3), CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR(3), CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION(3)