What is the shortest function for reading a cookie by name in JavaScript?

Question

What is the shortest, accurate, and cross-browser compatible method for reading a cookie in JavaScript?

Very often, while building stand-alone scri

Answer 1

To truly remove as much bloat as possible, consider not using a wrapper function at all:

try {
    var myCookie = document.cookie.match('(^|;) *myCookie=([^;]*)')[2]
} catch (_) {
    // handle missing cookie
}

As long as you're familiar with RegEx, that code is reasonably clean and easy to read.