Persistent Cookies vs. session cookies

Hi all (please excuse the crosspost but I can't find an HTTP group as such)

I am trying to find out the difference between persistent cookies and
session cookies. I have found plenty of documentation saying what the
differences are from the user point of view, but I want to know how the
server and browser distinguish between the two types in terms of HTTP
protocol.

I have read RFC 2965 and the Java servlet programming documentation and I
can't find any information as to how I should specify (or detect) whether a
specific cookie is persistent or session.

Any clues please?

Andy

Read the cookie specification, and epecially the section about the cookie
expires field.
http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html

/Fredrik

Thanks Fredrik,

Actually I had seen this document but I kind of skipped over it on the
grounds that it is (a) preliminary, (b) by netscape and (c) presumably quite
old. I was expecting some RFC or w3c document to give a definitive
statement. Anyway, I'm happy to accept it as the correct answer.

Thanks for the quick response - call me an optimist but IMHO usenet is as
good today as it's ever been.

"Fredrik Lindner" <fredrik.lindner@eponadata.se> wrote in message
news:bod7si$1b26q7$1@ID-115012.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Read the cookie specification, and epecially the section about the cookie
> expires field.
> http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html
>
> /Fredrik
>
>

Your points a, b and c are quite on the spot. I always treat the document as
a recomendation rather than a spec.

/Fredrik


"Andy Fish" <ajfish@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bypqb.1861$9P7.16216102@news-text.cableinet.net...
> Thanks Fredrik,
>
> Actually I had seen this document but I kind of skipped over it on the
> grounds that it is (a) preliminary, (b) by netscape and (c) presumably
quite
> old. I was expecting some RFC or w3c document to give a definitive
> statement. Anyway, I'm happy to accept it as the correct answer.
>
> Thanks for the quick response - call me an optimist but IMHO usenet is as
> good today as it's ever been.
>
> "Fredrik Lindner" <fredrik.lindner@eponadata.se> wrote in message
> news:bod7si$1b26q7$1@ID-115012.news.uni-berlin.de...
> > Read the cookie specification, and epecially the section about the
cookie
> > expires field.
> > http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html
> >
> > /Fredrik
> >
> >
>
>