creating res.cookie in JSON format with value as object

Question

creating res.cookie in JSON format with value as object

I tried do create a res.cookie like this:

function createCookie(res, loginToken, user) {
  res.cookie(
    'testcookie',
    {
      'logintoken': loginToken.cookieValue,
      'user_id' : user.id,
      'username' : user.name
    },
    {
      expires: new Date(Date.now() + 2 * 604800000),
      path: '/'
    }
  );
}

Then I access the cookie like this when a request comes in:

console.log (req.cookies)

I get this output:

 { 
   ...
   testcookie: '[object Object]'
 }

If I try to do:

  JSON.parse(testcookie)     // it errors not not being a valid JSON object
  JSON.stringify(testcookie)   // does not help either.

How can I send res.cookie in JSON object which I can parse later after reading from req object?

Please provide pointers?

javascript
node.js

Answer 1

The option of passing an Object to res.cookie() and having it auto-stringified as JSON is a new feature of Express 3.x.

For Express 2.x, you'll need to stringify it yourself when creating the cookie:

function createCookie(res, loginToken, user) {
  var jsonValue = JSON.stringify({
    'logintoken': loginToken.cookieValue,
    'user_id' : user.id,
    'username' : user.name
  });

  res.cookie(
    'testcookie',
    jsonValue,
    {
      expires: new Date(Date.now() + 2 * 604800000),
      path: '/'
    }
  );
}

And probably have to parse it yourself as well:

var testcookie = JSON.parse(req.cookies.testcookie);