Storing cookies from a PHP CURL session outside of the cookie jar.

shared_cookies.php

<?php
/**
 * A quick example of storing CURL cookies outside of a local cookie jar file.
 * Can be very useful for retaining API sessions between distributed applications.
 **/

// Split out cookies from CURL response
function splitCookies($rawResponse, &$cookieData)
{
	// Separate header and body
	list($curlHeader, $curlBody) = preg_split("/\R\R/", $rawResponse, 2);

	// Split out data from Set-Cookie headers
	preg_match_all("/^Set-Cookie:\s+(.*);/mU", $curlHeader, $cookieMatchArray);
	$cookieData = implode(';', $cookieMatchArray[1]);

	return $curlBody;
}


// Example of getting a cookie
$curlObj = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curlObj, CURLOPT_HEADER, true);
curl_setopt($curlObj, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curlObj, CURLOPT_URL, "http://127.0.0.1/SendMeSomeCookies");
$responseData = splitCookies(curl_exec($curlObj), $cookieData);
curl_close($curlObj);


// Example of using said cookie in another CURL session
$curlObj = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curlObj, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curlObj, CURLOPT_COOKIE, $cookieData);
curl_setopt($curlObj, CURLOPT_URL, "http://127.0.0.1/CookiesRequired");
$responseData = curl_exec($curlObj);
curl_close($curlObj);

?>

What is inside $cookieData please?

$cookieData is filled in line 15,
this happens thanks to the "&" before the parameter name: &$cookieData,
when calling the function splitCookies the parameter will already be full and can be used.