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HTTP State Management With Cookies
The HTTP state management mechanism specifies a way to create a stateful
session with HTTP requests and responses.
Generally, HTTP request/response pairs are independent of each other. However,
the state management mechanism enables clients and servers that can
exchange state information to put these pairs in a larger context,
which is called a session. The state information used to create and
maintain the session is called a cookie.
A cookie is a piece of data that can be stored in a browser's cache. If you
visit a web site and then revisit it, the cookie data can be used to identify
you as a return visitor. Cookies enable state information, such as an
online shopping cart, to be remembered. A cookie can be short term, holding data
for a single web session, that is, until you close the browser, or a cookie
can be longer term, holding data for a week or a year.
For more information about HTTP state management, see
RFC 2965: HTTP State Management Mechanism.
