How to remove cookies preserved by httr::GET?

Question

httr::GET preserves cookies when making requests to the same website.

Is it possible to query those preserved cookies?
How can I flush those preserved cookies and make "pristine" requests again?

Example:

# Get login cookie
r1 <- GET("https://some.url/login", authenticate("foo", "bar"))

cookies(r1)
# returns a data frame of two cookies

# Make request that requires authentication cookie
# Only succeeds if r1 was made
r2 <- GET("https://some.url/data/?query&subset=1")
r2

Notice that when making r2 you dont have to pass any cookie information explicitely as they are stored somewhere automatically.

I would like to know how these stored cookies can be queried or deleted?

I'm not sure about clearing existing cookies, but see the example in `?httr::cookies` for querying them. — nrussell, Oct 11 '16 at 14:42
Thanks @nrussell `cookies()` is not exactly what I meant. But I have added an example to clarify things. — Michał, Oct 11 '16 at 15:03

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 02 '17 at 16:32

8

Use a new handle to request.

h1 <- handle('')
r1 <- GET("https://some.url/login", handle=h1, authenticate("foo", "bar"))

h2 <- handle('')
r2 <- GET("https://some.url/data/?query&subset=1", handle=h2)

answered Jun 02 '17 at 16:32

Timespace

5,101
7
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1

Thanks! That solves (2). Do you have any ideas how to approach (1)? – Michał Jun 16 '17 at 12:10
Doesn't cookies(r1) return the preserved cookies? – Timespace Jul 13 '17 at 01:41
But are they used when making `r2`? I dont understand how it works. – Michał Jul 13 '17 at 11:59
1

When you pass a new handle into the request, it is pristine request. You can call `cookies(r1)` and `cookies(r2)` to see what cookies are stored. – Timespace Jul 14 '17 at 13:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 31 '16 at 04:25

0

One (very round about) way is to "reset" the package:

detach("package:httr", unload=TRUE)
library(httr)

I'm still looking for something better.

answered Dec 31 '16 at 04:25

BonStats

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2
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yeah... that's pretty blunt. Problematic too if you need to have other packages depending on `httr` loaded. – Michał Jan 01 '17 at 22:58
I'd be interested to see if you come up with something, I'm still trying to figure something out for myself... I tried looking at the global settings httr has but no luck so far – BonStats Jan 02 '17 at 23:08

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 15 '20 at 06:21

This worked for me:

# Get login cookie
r1 <- GET("https://some.url/login", authenticate("foo", "bar"))

cookies(r1)
# The cookies should be there, then:
handle_reset("https://some.url")
cookies(r1)
#now the cookies should be removed

I hope it helps

How to remove cookies preserved by httr::GET?

3 Answers3