How do I persist cookies when using HTTPUrlConnection?

Question

I've begun using the recommended HTTPUrlConnection and moved away from the DefaultHTTPClient. One of the things that I haven't been able to glue back together is the use of a persistent cookie store. I'd like to simply attach a custom cookie handler/manager to my connection to store the cookies. The Android documentation hasn't been very helpful as it wraps up the subject about cookies in two lines.

I've been using LoopJ's PersistentCookieStore earlier and that worked beautifully.

Any idea on how I could set up a persistent cookie store in Android that I can attach to my HTTPUrlConnection that saves and retrieves cookies automatically?

Thanks

Answer 1

Its' taken me a few hours but I managed to build a custom cookie storage myself.

You have to attach this by doing this:

public class application extends Application {
    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
       CookieManager cmrCookieMan = new CookieManager(new MyCookieStore(this.objContext), CookiePolicy.ACCEPT_ALL);
       CookieHandler.setDefault(cmrCookieMan);
       }
    }

Here's the actual storage:

/*
 * This is a custom cookie storage for the application. This
 * will store all the cookies to the shared preferences so that it persists
 * across application restarts.
 */
class MyCookieStore implements CookieStore {

    /*
     * The memory storage of the cookies
     */
    private Map<URI, List<HttpCookie>> mapCookies = new HashMap<URI, List<HttpCookie>>();
    /*
     * The instance of the shared preferences
     */
    private final SharedPreferences spePreferences;

    /*
     * @see java.net.CookieStore#add(java.net.URI, java.net.HttpCookie)
     */
    public void add(URI uri, HttpCookie cookie) {

        System.out.println("add");
        System.out.println(cookie.toString());

        List<HttpCookie> cookies = mapCookies.get(uri);
        if (cookies == null) {
            cookies = new ArrayList<HttpCookie>();
            mapCookies.put(uri, cookies);
        }
        cookies.add(cookie);

        Editor ediWriter = spePreferences.edit();
        HashSet<String> setCookies = new HashSet<String>();
        setCookies.add(cookie.toString());
        ediWriter.putStringSet(uri.toString(), spePreferences.getStringSet(uri.toString(), setCookies));
        ediWriter.commit();

    }

   /*
    * Constructor
    * 
    * @param  ctxContext the context of the Activity
    */
    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    public MyCookieStore(Context ctxContext) {

        spePreferences = ctxContext.getSharedPreferences("CookiePrefsFile", 0);
        Map<String, ?> prefsMap = spePreferences.getAll();

        for(Map.Entry<String, ?> entry : prefsMap.entrySet()) {

            for (String strCookie : (HashSet<String>) entry.getValue()) {

                if (!mapCookies.containsKey(entry.getKey())) {

                    List<HttpCookie> lstCookies = new ArrayList<HttpCookie>();
                    lstCookies.addAll(HttpCookie.parse(strCookie));

                    try {

                        mapCookies.put(new URI(entry.getKey()), lstCookies);

                    } catch (URISyntaxException e) {

                        e.printStackTrace();

                    }

                } else {

                    List<HttpCookie> lstCookies = mapCookies.get(entry.getKey());
                    lstCookies.addAll(HttpCookie.parse(strCookie));

                    try {

                        mapCookies.put(new URI(entry.getKey()), lstCookies);

                    } catch (URISyntaxException e) {

                        e.printStackTrace();

                    }

                }

                System.out.println(entry.getKey() + ": " + strCookie);

            }

        }

    }

    /*
     * @see java.net.CookieStore#get(java.net.URI)
     */
    public List<HttpCookie> get(URI uri) {

        List<HttpCookie> lstCookies = mapCookies.get(uri);

        if (lstCookies == null)
            mapCookies.put(uri, new ArrayList<HttpCookie>());

        return mapCookies.get(uri);

    }

    /*
     * @see java.net.CookieStore#removeAll()
     */
    public boolean removeAll() {

        mapCookies.clear();
        return true;

    }        

    /*
     * @see java.net.CookieStore#getCookies()
     */
    public List<HttpCookie> getCookies() {

        Collection<List<HttpCookie>> values = mapCookies.values();

        List<HttpCookie> result = new ArrayList<HttpCookie>();
        for (List<HttpCookie> value : values) {                
            result.addAll(value);                
        }

        return result;

    }

    /*
     * @see java.net.CookieStore#getURIs()
     */
    public List<URI> getURIs() {

        Set<URI> keys = mapCookies.keySet();
        return new ArrayList<URI>(keys);

    }

    /*
     * @see java.net.CookieStore#remove(java.net.URI, java.net.HttpCookie)
     */
    public boolean remove(URI uri, HttpCookie cookie) {

        List<HttpCookie> lstCookies = mapCookies.get(uri);

        if (lstCookies == null)
            return false;

        return lstCookies.remove(cookie);

    }

}